Anna Husarska is a journalist and policy analyst.
The small town of Oleshky in the Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region is hell on earth. Its inhabitants, with almost no functioning medical care, are being killed by land mines and drone attacks. Others are, most obscenely, dying of starvation.
Their neighbors in Kherson, across the Dnieper River in free Ukraine, can almost see their plight firsthand. Some have relatives trapped there. Oleshky has become a symbol of the brutality of Russian occupation for all of Ukraine.
On Oct. 16, Pope Leo XIV pleaded with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a humanitarian ceasefire “to allow the delivery of food and medical assistance, and the voluntary and safe evacuation of the civilian population.” And then last week the White House announced that first lady Melania Trump helped broker a ceasefire that is supposed to permit a humanitarian evacuation of the inhabitants who wish to leave.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits forcible transfers and deportations of protected persons from occupied territory, subject to a narrow exception for necessary temporary evacuations. International lawyers are looking into whether this would qualify as voluntary departure or what amounts to forced displacement. Edmarverson A. Santos, an expert in international law, noted that “the legality of the announced operation will depend on whether civilians can choose their destinations freely, whether any compulsory evacuations satisfy the Convention’s requirements, and how evacuees are treated during and after departure.”
Under the announced plan, Russian and Ukrainian representatives will visit residents to assess their needs. But with Oleshky under Russian military control, the independence of the process is questionable — to say the least. The Oleshkians I spoke to this summer reported Russian soldiers killing, raping and stealing food. Ukrainians know the needs of their people: the invasion needs to stop. As for the Russians, it is like expecting the fox to assess the needs of the henhouse.
As far as we know, the only Americans present will be journalists from Newsmax. There is no mention of any international observers, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been active in negotiating the safe passage of Ukrainians trapped behind Russian lines.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was concerned about the possible propaganda fallout from the evacuation. “Our people and society need to be prepared for how they will sell it: ‘Look, we see thousands of people who really want to go to Russia, and those fascists were shelling them.’” If only journalists from a pro-Trump outlet are there to document the evacuation, Zelensky’s worries may well be justified.
People who agree to leave Oleshky will reportedly have to first go to Russia itself. Fox News published photos of the agreement indicating there will be a stop in Anapa near Novorossiysk, after which the evacuees will be flown to Gomel, Belarus. This arrangement gives Russia a lot of leeway to manipulate the process. The evacuees are likely to be interrogated and their phones searched, as Ukrainians fleeing occupation have repeatedly experienced. “Spies” are likely to be detained. A photo of a son in Ukrainian uniform can carry grave consequences.
And there’s plenty of reason to doubt Russia will hold true to its word. In 2022, approximately 2,500 Ukrainian defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol surrendered after Russian negotiators reportedly promised they would be released within three to four months. More than four years later, over 500 fighters from the Azov unit alone remain in Russian captivity, according to Ukrainian authorities. The ICRC says Russia has denied it access to Ukrainian prisoners of war since 2024, in violation of the Third Geneva Convention.
In the ceasefire announcement, Melania Trump is quoted as saying that evacuees would be sent to their “preferred destination.” “I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine,” she added. Having reported extensively on this horrific situation, I have little doubt that, after four years of occupation, Russia will not be a preferred destination for Ukrainian Oleshkians. Why would they want to flee Russian hell by going through Russian hell?
Vika, one of the people I spoke to, who escaped from Oleshky with her family, traveled 4,000 miles across five countries to reach free Ukraine — which is 20 minutes away on the other bank of the Dnieper. Those with pro-Russian sympathies left a long time ago.
There’s still time for the first lady to surprise us. She might ask her husband why, instead of putting innocent civilians through a long and painful journey, they aren’t simply allowed to cross the Dnieper on boats to free Kherson.
For now, Ukrainian officials are being cautious in public. On Wednesday, Dmytro Lubinets, the parliament’s commissioner for human rights, said that the ceasefire was holding, and that he was in close contact with his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova. “Our shared goal is to ensure that people receive assistance and have the opportunity to reach safety,” he wrote, while thanking Melania Trump for her intervention.
On Tuesday, I watched the final performance of the powerful opera, “The Mothers of Kherson,” in Warsaw, before it heads to New York’s Metropolitan in 2028. It recounts the story of how, in the opening days of the full-scale invasion, a pro-Russian schoolteacher from Kherson offered townspeople a chance to send their children to a summer camp in occupied Crimea. After a few months, the mothers lose all contact with the kids.
I can’t help but think that we are witnessing the birth of a new tragedy. And among Ukrainians, there is growing apprehension of what may follow — everything from disappearances to a repeat of the massacre of civilians in Bucha.
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