Trapped for years by heavy fighting and threatened by starvation amid constant bombardment on the front in Ukraine, hundreds of civilians made it to safety on Saturday after the most ambitious evacuation operations since Russia invaded nearly five years ago.
“When the world pays attention, people are rescued,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement. “Further steps toward de-escalation and real progress toward peace are also needed.”
The dayslong operation around the city of Oleshky is now the longest localized cease-fire since 2022, said Dmytro Lubinets, a Ukrainian lawmaker and the parliamentary commissioner for human rights. He said it would remain in effect until 10:59 p.m. Sunday local time in Kyiv.
“Behind every stage of this operation are the lives of people who have been waiting and hoping,” he said. “The oldest evacuee is 94 years old, while the youngest is just over 1 year old! Another woman will celebrate her 49th birthday tomorrow!”
Both Russian and Ukrainian officials offered thanks to the U.S. first lady, Melania Trump, for helping broker the brief halt to the fighting around the battered city, in the Kherson region, which has been under Russian occupation for years.
“Oleshky proves we can raise humanity above war,” Mrs. Trump said in a statement. “Together, we can build a peaceful planet, a world of promise for our children.”
Yana Lantratova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, posted a message saying the mission was complete. Evacuees, she said, would be divided into one column of buses taking people to Ukraine and another staying in Russian-controlled territory.
Ukraine-bound evacuees had to make an arduous 19-hour journey from Oleshky to the Russian city of Anapa, on the Black Sea, and then through Belarus to Ukraine. On Saturday afternoon, they reunited with loved ones after years apart.
One man had survived 16 attacks by Russian drones and four missile strikes on his home, said the Ukrainian lawmaker, Mr. Lubinets.
“One of the explosions occurred just one meter from the wall of his house,” he said.
Russia and Ukraine have imposed restrictions on media reporting from the scene and have declined to give numbers of evacuees. Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi of Ukraine announced in Parliament on Friday that 527 people were being evacuated to Ukraine but swiftly retracted the statement.
The issue is sensitive because Russia’s ombudsman has said not many people wanted to leave, and Ukrainian officials have expressed concern that people have been living under Russian coercion. A Russian military blogger, Vladimir Romanov, posted on Telegram that 17 buses were heading to Ukraine and four buses to Russia. Soon after, he deleted his post.
How the cease-fire began
Oleshky’s plight has drawn international attention. Pope Leo XIV, just three days after surgery for lung cancer, spoke with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and called for a cease-fire to enable evacuations, and Mrs. Trump announced the local truce last Friday.
After both sides declared a localized cease-fire that started on Tuesday, Russian and Ukrainian officials traveled together, on the first mission of its kind, to evacuate civilians.
The Russian military spent two days demining access roads Then Mr. Lubinets and Ms. Lantratova set off Thursday night with a fleet of 25 buses that could carry 750 people, as well as ambulances and trucks of humanitarian aid.
The agreed-upon route for the evacuation was through Russian-held territory, so only Russian forces were involved.
Mr. Lubinets is the first Ukrainian official to visit Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“It is important to understand what is happening on the ground and to make every possible effort to ensure that the agreement reached is implemented,” he wrote on X.
One woman, Natalia Sierova, 72, delayed until it was too late. Her daughter-in-law, Olena, a civil servant in Odesa, said the family had for months urged Ms. Sierova to flee, but she said she could not leave behind the dogs she looked after.
Ms. Sierova came to the evacuation point in the morning but went home because she was feeling unwell, her daughter-in-law said. She tried again after pleas from her granddaughter, but her dog ran off. The buses had left by the time she returned.
“Maybe it was intentional,” her daughter-in-law said. “Her parents, sister, husband, and daughter are buried there,” she said. “Some people prefer to die on their own land, rather than die on the road and become a burden to others.”
Why Oleshky has been caught in a vise
Oleshky sits on the southeastern bank of the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine, where the river forms the front line. It has been under Russian occupation since early 2022.
On the opposite bank of the river is the much larger city of Kherson, which fell to Russia but was later retaken by Ukrainian forces.
About 24,000 people lived in Oleshky in when 2022 began, but most fled early on. Yuri Sobolevsky, deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, the local Ukrainian governing body, said many of those who remained were older people, a population that dwindled as things worsened.
“It’s hell there,” Mr. Sobolevsky said. “People need to be evacuated from there, 1,000 percent. They’re living 24/7 under risk of death.”
How conditions got so bad
With the rising dominance of drones in this war, Oleshky fell squarely in the armies’ widening “kill zone,” where anything that moves on the ground can be seen from above as a target.
This year, the drone warfare has grown markedly more intense. Russian soldiers and drone pilots operate out of ruined buildings in Oleshky, using it as a base to strike Kherson. The city, where more than 40,000 people live, is hit daily by drones and bombs.
Ukrainian drone pilots, in turn, try to hit the Russian military in Oleshky.
“It’s the constant accumulation of drones on both sides,” said Roman Kostenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker and the chairman of the defense and intelligence committee. “The intensity of combat operations has grown due to the fact that there are more drones, more crews and the enemy has set a goal to destroy Kherson.”
In addition, most roads in and out of the city have been mined and traffic is targeted by drones. Trucks stopped delivering food and medicine to Oleshky months ago because of the danger. Many people have lost electricity, heat and gas service.
The road ahead
Speaking at the Russian-Africa summit, Mr. Putin mentioned the relief operation but also accused Ukraine of “creating virtually a humanitarian catastrophe” in Oleshky.
Ukrainian officials have been concerned that Russia will present the rescue as a grand humanitarian gesture, and many Ukrainians and others voiced mistrust of Russian intentions.
Mr. Kostenko, the Ukrainian Parliament member, said there were concerns that a cease-fire would allow the Russian military to resupply and rotate its troops there, including some who have positions on islands in the Dnipro delta.
“We understand the enemy will use this to his advantage,” he said. “I think they will try to do a rotation, bring in more forces, regroup, take better positions. So we will need to watch them.”
Siobhán O’Grady and Liubov Sholudko contributed reporting from Kyiv, and Valerie Hopkins from Berlin.
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