OMM Newsroom
Residents evacuated from the devastated Russian-occupied city of Oleshky have arrived in Belarus and are expected to return to Ukraine later on Saturday, according to the BBC.
The residents were evacuated on Friday during a local ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump. Planes carrying them landed in Gomel on Saturday morning, Belarusian state media and a senior Ukrainian official said.
“The last, fourth plane landed in Gomel (Belarus). In a few hours, all Ukrainian citizens evacuated from Oleshky, together with the Ukrainian delegation, will be on Ukrainian territory,” Ukrainian official David Arakhamia said.
Belarusian state news agency Belta reported that a convoy of buses carrying Oleshky residents had left Gomel airport and was heading towards the Ukrainian border.
A humanitarian ceasefire took effect across the frontline region of Kherson on Tuesday, bringing the first few days of peace in the area in four years, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The truce allowed the road out of Oleshky to be cleared of mines and is due to remain in place until the end of Sunday 1 November.
Residents were given a four-hour window to leave before a convoy of 25 buses, with space for 750 people, departed the town on Friday afternoon. Ambulances accompanied the convoy for people with limited mobility.
Several hundred people are understood to have chosen to remain in the war-torn city despite widespread devastation and a lack of gas, electricity and running water. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Friday morning that those who stayed “will receive all the necessary humanitarian assistance”.
Ukrainian military positions are just 5km (3.1 miles) from Oleshky. However, evacuees first had to travel through Russian-occupied territory to the southern Russian city of Anapa, from where they flew to Gomel.
Lubinets and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, travelled to Oleshky together on Friday, setting out from Armiansk in the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula. Lubinets is the first Ukrainian official to visit Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine since the war began.
The ceasefire in Oleshky required close cooperation with Lantratova. Lubinets said he had worked with her to save lives, while some in Ukraine objected to seeing him alongside a representative of the Russian occupying power, which has killed many of the city’s residents and made life unbearable for others.
Russia said on Thursday it had prepared “dozens of tonnes” of aid for residents who did not want to leave, including food, medicine, hygiene products and fuel for generators.
