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Fighting has resumed in Ukraine’s Kherson region after a six-day ceasefire brought a rare period of calm to the front line and enabled hundreds of people to leave the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky and nearby areas, BBC World reported.
Local authorities said on Monday that strikes had restarted, including a Russian attack on a medical facility in central Kherson city. They also said a 62-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man were injured when a Russian drone struck the car they were travelling in.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of using the humanitarian pause to reinforce positions, rotate troops and deliver ammunition. The General Staff said it had recorded Russian unit rotations, the expansion of anti-drone equipment along roads and ammunition deliveries.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “reasonable to assume that the Ukrainian army also used this period for the necessary regrouping”. He described this as “a completely standard practice in such situations”.
Truce brokered by Melania Trump
The ceasefire, the longest since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump. Kyiv and Moscow thanked her repeatedly, although details of her involvement were not made public.
Russia’s human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, oversaw the truce. They travelled to Oleshky and were filmed speaking with residents, publicly thanking each other for their work and saying they had observed no ceasefire violations.
Both ombudsmen called for similar initiatives elsewhere, and Ukraine said several times it was ready to observe ceasefires across the country. The Kremlin, however, dismissed the prospect while the Oleshky truce was still in effect, calling it “an isolated case” that would not affect the “settlement process”, a reference to stalled peace talks. Peskov said on Monday there were “no similar plans or initiatives”.
While fighting paused in the Kherson region, Russian air strikes continued elsewhere in Ukraine, killing scores of civilians and damaging critical infrastructure. The comparatively broad and lengthy truce around Oleshky was therefore an exception.
The ceasefire appeared to be linked in part to Melania Trump’s reported involvement. Moscow could have risked undermining efforts to build a relationship with her husband, US President Donald Trump, by breaking the truce.
Some commentators said Trump might present the Oleshky ceasefire as a foreign policy achievement ahead of the US midterm elections on Tuesday. Artyom Sheynin, a prominent figure on Russian state television, said he understood why Russian officials needed to “play along” with the US first lady and create a “success story” for the US president, whose wife had “achieved a ceasefire” in Oleshky.
Hundreds evacuated from Oleshky
Ukraine also had reasons to comply with the truce, despite often strained relations with Washington. It continues to rely heavily on US intelligence and US-made “Patriot” air defence missiles to counter Russian aerial attacks. Continued American support is essential to protect Ukrainian skies ahead of another difficult winter of war.
Although the ceasefire may have been driven by political calculations as well as humanitarian concerns, it enabled hundreds of civilians to escape. Oleshky residents arrived in northern Ukraine on Saturday, where many were reunited with relatives they had not seen for years. Evacuees told journalists of years of hunger and hardship in the devastated town.
Lantratova said residents who chose to remain in Oleshky would receive monthly humanitarian aid deliveries, adding that the decision was also the result of Melania Trump’s mediation.
The troop rotations and efforts to resupply show that neither side expects the Oleshky truce to provide a model for lasting respite. As Kherson came under fire again, Ukrainian drones struck energy facilities in four Russian regions. Residents in Samara reported explosions and black smoke after an oil refinery was hit for the fifth time in a month.
The truce brought a rare moment of relief to Oleshky but did little to change the wider course of the war.
