Editor's note: this story was translated from the original VOA Ukrainian article.
A ceasefire in the area around the temporarily occupied city of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region is continuing to hold after it went into effect on Tuesday. This is seen as the first significant localized truce observed by both Ukraine and Russia since the beginning of Russia`s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“The ceasefire has now been in effect for 54 hours. It began on October 27 at 3:00 a.m. Kyiv time. The parties are fully complying with the agreed-upon terms, and no violations of the ceasefire have been recorded,” wrote Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine`s human right ombudsman on social media.
The agreement on establishing a six-day ceasefire and evacuation operation in Oleshky and the surrounding area was brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump and her team. A formal agreement between Ukraine and Russia, represented by ombudsmen from both countries, Lubinets and Yana Lantratova, has been signed on October 23 in Belarus.
The ceasefire went into effect two days ahead of schedule and “has expanded beyond Oleshky, within the Kherson Region, to provide safe passage for the humanitarian convoys,” Melania Trump announced on X.
Trump also reported that both sides finished demining to ensure passage of humanitarian aid to Oleshky and evacuation of its residents. She also shared that a TV crew from the U.S. news outlet Newsmax will be documenting the evacuation on the ground, “Serving as neutral observers, they will independently record and permanently document this historic humanitarian mission,” she wrote on X on Wednesday.
The Vatican said Pope Leo XIV last week spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging them to allow humanitarian aid into the area.
Earlier, Lubinets told VOA that the agreement will be implemented in three stages: establishing a ceasefire, delivering food, water and medicine to Oleshky, and, finally, evacuating residents who wish to leave. Preliminary estimates suggest that around 2,000 people remain in Oleshky, including children.
Residents of Oleshky and nearby Hola Prystan, both occupied by Russia in the early days of the full-scale invasion in 2022, have been trapped amid hostilities in frontline areas. The area is heavily mined, and the food supplies have been cut off for several months.
“People can’t get out, food can’t get in, and sick and injured are not getting the medical assistance they need,” the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in a report published in June.
Since then, the situation has only worsened with multiple media and reports based on interviews with residents documenting the threat of starvation.
On Thursday, the two sides announced that their teams had departed for an aid mission in Oleshky.
“Our main task is to deliver humanitarian aid to people who remain in the city. We will also ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave Oleshky,” Russian human rights chief Lantratova wrote on Telegram.
As Lubinets told VOA, residents of Oleshky and nearby area will be given a choice of where they want to go — to Ukrainian-government controlled territory or to Russia.
According to the agreement published by Fox News residents of Oleshky who wish to travel to Ukrainian-controlled territory will be taken to the Russian city of Anapa and then flown to Gomel, a city in Belarus about 20 miles from Ukraine`s border, on a military aircraft accompanied by a Ukrainian delegation.
The Russia-installed governor of the occupied part of Kherson oblast told Russian news service Vesti that authorities have prepared accommodation for evacuated Oleshky residents and will aid those who want to stay in Russia or wish to leave, including to Ukrainian-government controlled territory.
The ceasefire has also affected the city of Kherson itself. After enduring constant shelling, the city has begun coming back to life. People are going outside, taking walks, and enjoying the autumn sunshine, according to a VOA reporter in the region.
The ceasefire is scheduled to remain in effect until November 1.
There are still a lot of unknowns, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor told VOA.
"There's the demining, where the people go to when they leave Oleshky, whether they can get to Ukraine. Whether the Russians will use this for propaganda purposes. All of these things we don't know yet."
However, he said, if all the arrangements can be implemented, the operation could serve as a model for similar humanitarian missions in other Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.
VOA Russian's Stanislav Pribylov contributed to this article.