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US First Lady Melania Trump called for a “more enduring” ceasefire in Ukraine as she hosted Russian and Ukrainian delegations at the White House, following last week’s six-day truce in the Kherson region, according to the BBC.
The ceasefire allowed hundreds of residents of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky, who faced starvation and constant bombardment, to evacuate. Moscow and Kyiv both credited Trump with helping broker the truce.
“The lives of innocent people must transcend the division of war. I hope Oleshky inspires greater peace,” Trump said.
The unusual meeting brought senior Russian and Ukrainian officials together outside the US-brokered peace talks that the two sides have been holding without success since last year. The delegations included Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, as well as Ukrainian MP Davyd Arakhamia and Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
All sides credited Trump with an important, though unspecified, role in the ceasefire and conveyed the gratitude of the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.
Officials describe ceasefire and evacuation
Trump said she had “reviewed demining plans, aerial images, assessed roadways, and discussed evacuation routes, hospital access, vehicles, and medical resources” during the truce.
“Last week in Oleshky and neighbouring areas of Kherson, people experienced the simple joys of life for the first time since 2022,” she said. “They walked down familiar streets without fear of explosions.”
She thanked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, without referring to the war’s origins. The conflict began when Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has caused thousands of civilian casualties and displaced millions.
Dmitriev, a businessman and Kremlin special envoy who has previously represented Moscow in peace talks with Ukraine, thanked Trump for “saving and touching so many lives”. He called for continued humanitarian work and gave her a framed drawing by an 11-year-old evacuee from Oleshky.
Dmitriev also praised Trump’s work to reunite children separated from their families by the war, including children allegedly abducted by Russia.
Arakhamia, who heads Zelensky’s party in parliament and has served on Ukraine’s negotiating team, called the Oleshky ceasefire the “biggest de-escalation since 2022”.
“We are creating a momentum where both sides are learning the… mechanics of how to actually keep the peace when the peace comes,” he said.
Arakhamia described the political negotiations to end the conflict as “complex” and said Ukrainians were asking Trump “to keep going and find new missions and de-escalate more”.
At the end of the meeting, Trump gave Dmitriev and Arakhamia letters to deliver to their respective presidents.
Questions over who arranged the truce
The White House said Trump invited the guests to view two historic objects she had “personally selected as powerful symbols of peace”. One was an 18th-century medicine chest removed from the White House after the British set the building on fire in 1812. “Once adversaries, the United States and Great Britain ultimately established a strong alliance,” the White House said.
The other object was a cup presented in 1899 to the French ambassador in recognition of his efforts to help end the Spanish-American War.
Trump has generally kept a low profile on foreign policy. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv has explained the nature or extent of her involvement in coordinating the ceasefire, which the BBC described as the most enduring and widespread of the war so far.
A source working in the Kherson regional government told the BBC that preparations for the Oleshky evacuation had been under way for almost a year. The source said other people appeared to become involved after much of the groundwork had been completed and then began taking credit for progress already made.
The source said it was difficult to establish who had played what role and when, adding that people directly involved in negotiations for nearly a year were eventually barred from speaking publicly about the matter.
After the White House meeting, Zelensky said the ceasefire’s success “had proved a very simple thing: when Putin wants the fighting to stop, it stops”. He added: “The same applies to our people who are held in Russian captivity. When Putin wants, they go home.”
A source close to US officials offered a similar assessment to the BBC, saying that despite the public praise, “the person who made [the ceasefire] possible, whether we like it or not, is essentially Putin”. The source said it had been done to “pass the ball to [Donald] Trump” and have “some positive effect for his midterm elections”.
Ukrainian political analyst Dmytro Levus told the BBC that Russia’s position had not changed. Moscow agreed to the truce under pressure from the United States, he said, adding that Russia had shown it could quickly stop firing and maintain a ceasefire when necessary.
While the frontline region of Kherson experienced its first six days of peace in several years, other parts of Ukraine remained under Russian attack. Several drone and missile strikes this week killed and injured civilians across the country.
On Monday alone, more than 40 people were killed in a Russian strike on an aid distribution centre in the Zaporizhzhia region. More people are believed to remain buried under the rubble.
Anastasiia Levchenko in Kyiv contributed to the reporting.
