(AFP) – Residents of the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, ravaged by years of war, arrived in Ukraine on Saturday after being evacuated via Belarus during a rare truce brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump. An AFP journalist saw the residents, some draped in Ukrainian flags, disembark from buses and tearfully embrace their loved ones in emotional scenes.
Oleshky, in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, was captured by the Russian military in 2022 and had been caught in intense fighting between the two sides that left residents starving and unable to escape. Announcing the ceasefire on October 23, First Lady Melania Trump described the city as being “on the brink of disaster” and said that without her intervention, bringing aid to its beleaguered residents would have been “impossible”.
The evacuees whom AFP met in northern Ukraine on Saturday said that they had to eat grass to survive and that some had hunted dogs. “There was no bread. Nothing. The shops weren’t open,” Valera, who did not give his last name, told AFP. “Lots of people planted vegetable gardens. We ate whatever was available. Well, thank God, we’re here now,” the 29-year-old added. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that the residents would “receive the assistance they need.” “I thank the American side and US First Lady Melania Trump for their mediation,” he added.
Ukrainian and Russian officials visited the city together on Friday, delivering aid and marshalling those who wanted to leave in a rare show of cooperation between the warring sides. The truce, which covers the Kherson region only and began early Tuesday, marks the longest pause in fighting between Russia and Ukraine anywhere on the front line since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022. The conflict, now in its fifth year, has left hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead and forced millions to flee their homes.
– ‘No life there’ –
AFP reporters saw jubilant scenes as the evacuees disembarked buses in Ukraine’s northern Chernigiv region, having been evacuated via Belarus. Yelyzaveta Paliy, who was waiting for her father to return, said she never expected him to be gone so long. “We last saw him at the end of January 2024, when my sister, mum and I left, and he stayed behind,” the 19-year-old said. AFP saw the pair smiling and embracing after being reunited. “This is a blessing. I’ve been waiting a long time,” her father said. “There’s no life there anymore,” he said of Oleshky.
Captured by Russia in 2022, locals in the city had faced food, water, and medicine shortages for months, while some were forced to hunt and eat pigeons, former residents told AFP. Around 2,000 residents, compared with 24,000 before the Russian invasion, were still in Oleshky ahead of the humanitarian operation, according to Kyiv’s estimates. The Ukrainian military had released drone footage of the town showing rows of empty apartment blocks, some charred by fire or partially destroyed by fighting.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has specified the number of people evacuated, and authorities in both countries previously indicated that many residents wished to remain in the city, even in the event of renewed fighting. The truce is scheduled to end on Sunday evening. Russia, which denies targeting civilians, now occupies around a fifth of its neighbour: the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014, most of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk — collectively referred to as the Donbas — and large parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume in November, having been effectively frozen since the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in February. Elsewhere in Ukraine, the capital Kyiv was suffering electricity shortages on Saturday following Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure the day before, private Ukrainian energy provider DTEK said.
– Mykola ZAVGORODNIY
© 2024 AFP
