In the eight months since he was born in Ukraine’s frontline city of Kherson this year, Davyd has never been more than five minutes away from his home, kept inside by his parents because of relentless attacks by Russian glide bombs, missiles and drones.
Davyd got his first glimpse of a larger, safer world on Wednesday, when a local cease-fire announced by the first lady, Melania Trump, let his parents take him on his longest-ever walk. With Davyd bundled up in a Mickey Mouse hat and fleece panda pants, the family spent more than an hour strolling streets normally threatened by Russian artillery and drones, basking in the October sun without the usual fears that their child might at any moment be killed.
Davyd shook his rattle as the family strolled, eyes wide at his new surroundings.
“We wish it were like this all the time,” Davyd’s mother, Oleksandra, 27, said as they passed the bombed-out governor’s office on the city’s main street, covered in nets to catch Russian drones. Oleksandra, like many residents, spoke on condition she be identified only by her first name. She fears retribution against her parents, who still live under Russian occupation just across the Dnipro River.
The temporary cease-fire, set to last three days, began early Tuesday morning in Ukraine’s Kherson region to facilitate an evacuation of the nearby city of Oleshky. The some 2,000 people living in that city, which Russia seized in February 2022, are facing a starvation crisis. Their worsening plight garnered attention from Mrs. Trump, who helped arrange a rare agreement between Russia and Ukraine to hold fire in the area long enough to demine the road out and allow locals to evacuate. The Ukrainian civilians will then be able to choose if they stay in territory controlled by Russia or return to areas under Ukrainian control. The Ukrainian-controlled city of Kherson, which sits several miles across the river from Oleshky and is typically under near constant Russian attack, also went quiet this week. Russia seized Kherson in early 2022. Later that year Ukrainian forces pushed them across the river. Russia has never given up on retaking the city and launches many of its attacks on Kherson from Oleshky. But it has withheld fire on Kherson since the Oleshky truce began.
The sudden quiet has allowed for a remarkable respite in one of Ukraine’s most dangerous cities, where drones often hunt civilians in what Ukrainian officials call a “human safari.” Civilians wandered Kherson’s streets with a sense of bewilderment and caution on Wednesday, still trying to wrap their heads around how Mrs. Trump, who has rarely commented on the war in Ukraine, managed to secure them a brief moment of peace.
Yurii Kryvyi, 61, a painter, walked to meet his friend Viktor and show him one of his latest works. When asked how they planned to mark the brief respite from drones, Mr. Kryvyi laughed. “Beer!” he shouted. “And cigars!”
“Cigars are too expensive,” Viktor said. “But tobacco, yes!”
“The day is good. There’s sun. And finally it’s quiet,” Viktor added. “We are tired of running away from drones. And drones are tired of running after us.”
A group of teenagers met to visit their childhood haunts, off-limits for years: a long-closed movie theater, a playground, their schools. All of them have been studying online since 2022, joining classes by video chat as Russia bombards the city outside. Their parents worried about their excursion and warned them to watch their step, they said. Vadym, 14, said he was relieved their neighbors in Oleshky would finally get to safety. But he, like many others in Kherson, also fears that once that Russian-controlled city is empty of civilians, Russia will reinforce its positions there and ramp up its cross-river attacks on Kherson. “If they bring more ammunition, it will only get worse,” Vadym said. Outside a coffee stand, another group of friends gathered to discuss the cease-fire. They are relishing the calm this week, but agreed it wouldn’t last.
“It will be worse than it used to be,” Oleksandra Kosenko, 37, who runs the coffee stand, said. “Once all this ends,” she added, “we shouldn’t leave the house.”
Anatolii, 70, said he felt Ukraine was being “played like a chessboard.” “I hate Donald,” he said of President Trump. “He’s not a serious person. In the morning he’s our friend, in the evening he’s our enemy.”
His friend, Ihor, 63, interrupted. “We like Melania more!” he said. “I thank her that people can at least evacuate.”
Anatolii agreed. “This is a beautiful woman, and with brains!” he said. “Maybe if a woman were in power in the U.S., it would be better.”
A dart board hung on the wall opposite them, with a caricature of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin’s face pinned on it. One dart poked through the middle of his forehead.
Many residents used the calm to leave home, stock up on food for the months ahead and to run errands that are normally too dangerous, like going to the vet or the bank. City workers rushed out to do work that requires them to be in the open, like sweeping up leaves and repairing holes in drone netting.
A crowd gathered at a nearby bus stop. A dog missing one foot limped by, nudging for pats.
Svitlana Rominska, 57, said she had grown so used to constant bombing that “I am worried when it’s quiet.”
Olha Avramko, 71, was in the city center with her husband to check on her daughter’s house for the first time in several years. Her daughter had moved her family out of Kherson in 2022, and they still didn’t know if the house had been damaged or robbed. Her daughter had until now banned her parents from checking on the house, fearing they would be killed in the process.
When they arrived on Wednesday, the lock was so stiff that the key barely worked.
Inside, she said, the house looked like a time capsule from peacetime. Old toys still lined her grandchildren’s beds. They have been gone so long, she said, they’re already too grown up to play with them. Fearing squatters might one day break into the property, she and her husband hung clothes on the line outside to make it look as if the family had returned. They also packed up any remaining valuables, not knowing if they’d ever have the chance to come back.
The brief cease-fire, Ms. Avramko said, “smells like an advertisement” for U.S. political campaigns. “I am a bit worried what will happen after this,” she said.
It had been months since Viktor Trusii could visit the cemetery where his wife and eldest son are buried. His wife, Halyna, died from cancer in 2021. Their son was killed as a child by a drunk driver.
The road to their graves was so badly mined that on Wednesday, Mr. Trusii rode his bike instead of driving. He hoped the thinner tires would give him a better chance of survival.
Under newly quiet skies, he planted red flowers by his wife’s heart-shaped headstone. Then he rode his bike to the city center.
When Halyna was still alive, and before the war came to Kherson, they used to sit by the riverbank and drink coffee together, he said. Visiting the river seemed too risky, so on Wednesday, he packed enough coffee for two, then sat on a bench in town instead. He held his cup in one hand and a photo of her on his phone in the other.
“I’m drinking coffee with my little fish,” he said through tears, using a Ukrainian term for sweetheart. He didn’t want to cry, he said, but seeing their graves, uncared for after so long, had broken something in him.
“Because of those jerks I couldn’t visit them,” he said, referring to the Russians.
He also lost their family home on an island in the river, which was destroyed earlier in the war. The couple’s other son, who joined the military in 2022, was recently wounded on the frontline. He’s now in a rehabilitation center in Odesa.
The skies were clear and the day was calm, but Mr. Trusii had lost too much already. He struggled to find much hope in it.
“I feel so alone,” he said. Then he finished his coffee, got on his bike and rode away — alone.
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