The humanitarian ceasefire around the Russian-occupied front-line city of Oleshky has been extended, according to the United States. It now applies beyond the city limits, First Lady Melania Trump announced on social media on Tuesday, as reported by Deutschlandfunk and Der Tagesspiegel. The ceasefire zone has been expanded beyond Oleshky into the Kherson region to allow humanitarian convoys safe passage, and the timetable has been brought forward by two days, Melania Trump said. According to Deutschlandfunk, the truce is to last until Sunday.
The ceasefire took effect on Tuesday, 27 October, at 04:00 Moscow time – which corresponds to 03:00 local time and 02:00 CET. The Russian Ministry of Defence stated on Telegram that shelling towards the Ukrainian city of Kherson, which lies opposite Oleshky on the other side of the Dnipro, had been stopped. The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, confirmed the start on Facebook: “As head of the Ukrainian negotiating team, I declare that the Ukrainian side is fulfilling its obligations,” he wrote, according to tagesschau.de.
A corridor through mined terrain
During the multi-day ceasefire, food and medicine are to be brought to the remaining residents. A humanitarian corridor is also to be created so that people can leave the region towards Russia or into Ukraine. The evacuation is to begin in the coming days.
According to tagesschau.de, the terrain around Oleshky is completely mined. Because aid supplies could barely get through by land, the Ukrainian armed forces temporarily deployed drones – many of which were shot down by Russian troops, according to tagesschau.de and Spiegel. Under the agreement, mines are now to be cleared to create a safe aid corridor. The General Staff in Kyiv stressed, according to Spiegel, that the ceasefire applies exclusively to the humanitarian operation. “Do not trust unconfirmed reports and do not spread rumours about routes, times and places where people and humanitarian convoys are moving,” it said on Telegram, according to the report.
Oleshky lies in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson region, a few kilometres south of the Dnipro, which marks the border between occupied and free territory. Before Russian troops invaded in 2022, the city had around 24,000 inhabitants. According to estimates, 1,500 to 2,000 people remain in the heavily damaged city; including the surrounding villages, up to 6,000 people are said to be suffering hardship. Former residents told the news agency AFP earlier this year that those remaining were starving, that medicines were lacking, and that they could not easily leave the city. Since May, according to tagesschau.de, people have been living on supplies and what they harvested in the summer.
An election gift before the midterms?
According to the US government, the ceasefire stems from an initiative by the White House. Melania Trump is said to have initiated the talks and, together with a representative, negotiated the conditions directly with the Russian and Ukrainian leadership. Pope Leo XIV had also advocated help for Oleshky in a phone call with Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. According to the Kremlin, a successful humanitarian operation could serve as a model for other front-line sections.
Journalist Dmitry Kolesov said in the ZDFheute report: “What is interesting is that the ceasefire came about neither earlier nor later, but precisely shortly before the date of the US midterm elections on 3 November.” The ZDF analysis said the truce looked more like a gift to US President Donald Trump before the midterms than like the start of genuine de-escalation. After the visit of US negotiator Steve Witkoff, trilateral talks were announced for November. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said on Monday, according to tagesschau.de, that the resumption of negotiations meant “no restrictions on combat operations”.
Nothing has changed in that regard so far: while the guns are silent in Oleshky, Russia continued its attacks on Kyiv. The Ukrainian army said the Russian side had fired ballistic missiles towards the capital. According to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, an important bridge over the Dnipro was damaged, and the metro infrastructure on the bridge was also affected. Rail traffic over the bridge was halted, according to the city authorities. According to Klitschko, the link between the left and right banks of the river is “one of the decisive factors for the city’s ability to function”. President Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to Spiegel, that the missiles had struck near a university and in busy city districts; there was “not a single military facility” in the area.
Zelensky also again pointed to the need for air defence. Moscow had used more than 100 ballistic missiles against Kyiv and the surrounding area within two weeks, he said in a video message, as reported by Der Tagesspiegel citing the news agency dpa. There were significant delays in the delivery of air defence systems, especially US Patriot-type systems. “And everyone hears and everyone sees that it is currently difficult for us to defend ourselves against Russian ballistic missiles,” Zelensky said.
In the Russian-controlled part of the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, meanwhile, according to the local administration, one person was killed and 30 others injured when a drone hit a bus. The Russian-installed governor of the region, Yevgeny Balitsky, announced this.
