World News
Russia and Ukraine agree a local ceasefire in Oleshky to let aid in and civilians out
By Staff Writer | 24 October 2026
The White House said the truce in the occupied town on the Dnipro was brokered by the US first lady. Russia's chief of the general staff said his forces would stop firing there from early on Tuesday 27 October.
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to stop military action in Oleshky, a town in the Kherson region that Russian forces have held since February 2022, so that humanitarian aid can be brought in and civilians who want to leave can be taken out.
The White House announced the agreement on Friday. Its statement said both countries had agreed to halt all military action in the town to let aid enter and to prepare an evacuation through a designated safe passage. It credited Melania Trump and her representative with working directly with Russian and Ukrainian leaders to settle the terms.
The White House gave 29 October as the start date. Russia's chief of the general staff, General Valery Gerasimov, later said Russian forces would cease fire from 4am local time on 27 October.
A town cut off on the front line
Oleshky sits across the Dnipro from the city of Kherson. According to the White House, about 24,000 people lived there before the war and an estimated 1,700 to 2,000 remain, most of them elderly, along with about 50 children. It said there had been no formal count of the population since 2022 and that about 90 per cent of the town's territory was flooded after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Residents have described severe shortages of food, water and electricity. Ukraine has for weeks pressed for a civilian evacuation and has at times used drones to drop food and medical supplies into the town.
The situation in Oleshky is dire. Oleshky is a front-line war city on the brink of disaster.
Melania Trump, First Lady of the United States
Under the arrangement described by the White House, civilian teams from both countries will visit residents in their homes, assess what help each household needs and arrange transport for those who choose to leave, to either Russia or Ukraine. The statement said an American media organisation, which it did not name, would accompany the teams on the ground.
Several hands in the agreement
Ukraine's chief negotiator, David Arakhamia, said the accord followed a long process involving both the first lady and Pope Leo XIV. The Pope raised the town's situation in a telephone call with President Vladimir Putin last week and spoke to President Volodymyr Zelensky about it on Monday. Calls for a humanitarian pause had also come from the United Nations, EU officials and the Council of Europe.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed the agreement. The Kremlin said the evacuation would take at least a few days. Ukraine's parliamentary ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the operation would involve clearing mines from the roads into the town, delivering food and evacuating civilians, and would be carried out in stages.
The truce covers one town only. On the same day Zelensky said negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States had agreed to meet at a technical level in the first half of November, and repeated that any peace settlement must include strong security guarantees and ten years of funding for Ukraine's armed forces.