A six-day local ceasefire in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, has held for its first day and night, with no violations recorded in its first 30 hours, officials from both sides said on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.
Source: Associated Press
The localised truce began on Tuesday and is due to last through Sunday — a Reuters-syndicated brief put the agreed end date at November 1 — while a humanitarian operation races to deliver urgently needed food and medicine to the town's roughly 2,000 remaining residents and to evacuate those who want to leave.
Both ombudsmen confirm the quiet
Russia's ombudsperson Yana Lantratova wrote that no incidents were recorded during the first 30 hours of the "silence regime" in Oleshky, and said she remained in regular contact with Ukraine's human rights ombudsperson Dmytro Lubinets to coordinate the arrangements. Lubinets also confirmed that no incidents had been recorded. Separately, the Kherson Regional Military Administration reported no incoming strikes in the region over the preceding 24 hours, according to Anadolu Agency reporting.
Source: Anadolu Agency
The plight of Oleshky caught the attention of US First Lady Melania Trump, and the White House said she brokered the humanitarian mission. Pope Leo XIV also spoke this month with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, urging them to allow humanitarian aid into Oleshky and the safe evacuation of civilians, the Vatican said, according to AP. Zelenskyy said he was grateful to Melania Trump for her role, adding that Ukraine was ready to receive evacuees from the town.
If the ceasefire holds for its full term, AP noted, it would be the first time since Russia's invasion more than four and a half years ago that the two sides have observed a significant truce; previous attempts either failed to take hold or quickly unravelled.
The war continues elsewhere
The quiet in Oleshky did not extend to the rest of the front. A Russian drone strike on the northeastern city of Kharkiv overnight wounded five people, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said, according to AP. Russia's Defence Ministry, for its part, said its air defences downed 531 Ukrainian drones from late Tuesday through early Wednesday — a figure reported by AP that neither side's battlefield claims could be independently verified in this report.
The development coincided with US-led plans to bring Moscow and Kyiv officials back to the table next month for technical talks on how to move forward on ending the war, AP reported, even though neither side shows signs of backing down from its key demands.
The test is whether the silence survives until Sunday: aid convoys and evacuations must move through the corridor while both armies keep fighting everywhere else along the front.