Oleshky evacuees leave for Russia as ceasefire holds

A humanitarian ⁠⁠convoy carrying ⁠⁠evacuated residents from Russian-controlled Oleshky in Ukraine has reached ⁠⁠Crimea, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova said ⁠⁠on Friday.

The evacuation ⁠⁠was part of ⁠⁠a joint relief operation by Russia and Ukraine, the first of ‌‌its kind in four years and eight months of ‌‌war, following a local ceasefire reportedly brokered by United States First Lady Melania Trump.

“We are concluding our humanitarian mission in Oleshky. We are currently in the ‌‌territory of Armyansk [in northern Crimea], where we are organising into convoys,” Lantratova posted on social media.

One convoy was carrying people ⁠⁠bound for Ukraine, ⁠⁠the other for Russia, she said, adding that the operation had ⁠⁠taken place “without incidents”.

“The Ukrainian delegation, together with the evacuated residents of Oleshky, left for Anapa. From there they will fly to Belarus, and then take buses home,” David Arakhamia, head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People faction in parliament, wrote on Telegram.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Audrey McAlpine said evacuees would be flown on Saturday from Anapa, in Russia’s Krasnodar region, to Belarus, on a plane provided by the Russian Ministry of Defence. The flight is going to Gomel, and from there evacuees will cross into Ukraine’s Chernihiv region at “a border crossing that is commonly used, for example, during prisoner exchanges”, McAlpine said.

The number of people leaving is still unclear. Ukraine’s Prime Minister Serhiy Koretskyi earlier said 527 residents would return to Ukrainian-held territory. He later apologised for announcing the figure, saying it could change and official numbers would follow once the evacuation was complete. McAlpine said the figure was “a pretty closely guarded secret by the Ukrainian side”.

An aid convoy carrying food and medical supplies entered the town on Friday after weeks of efforts to organise a relief operation, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported. Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, met in Oleshky overnight, Russian state TV channel Vesti reported.

Lantratova said residents who chose to stay received food, hygiene products, fuel for generators and other supplies, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow. At least 50 Russian medical workers arrived in the town to support the mission.

Lantratova said on Friday evening that the humanitarian mission was being wrapped up. In a video posted on Telegram, she said the convoy, made up of 25 buses, nine ambulances and buses for bedridden people, had reached Armyansk in northern Crimea, where evacuees were being split into two columns, one heading to Ukraine and the other to Russia.

The White House says Melania Trump mediated the ceasefire in Oleshky, which she said was “on the brink of disaster”, with food and medical supplies running perilously low for the up to 2,000 people still there. According to the White House, she began talks after hearing about the situation at one of her events during the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The Vatican has suggested the pope helped secure the pause in fighting through phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.

Once home to about 24,000 people, Oleshky has no electricity, heat or running water as it approaches another harsh winter.

Moscow and Kyiv have observed the truce in and around the devastated town since Tuesday, but remain otherwise locked in a war that began more than four years ago.

The situation in Oleshky is an isolated case that should not be extrapolated to the broader peace process in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday on Russian state TV.

Residents near Oleshky told McAlpine they were seeing signs of military resupply on both sides, suggesting they “may possibly be bracing for the fighting to continue”.

Elsewhere, Russia struck an industrial facility near Kremenchuk overnight and hit Kyiv and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukrainian officials said on Telegram.

Moscow said it hit energy infrastructure in and around Kyiv and in the Dnipropetrovsk region, port facilities in the Odesa region, and cargo vessels it said were used by the military.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that air defences downed most of the more than 850 drones headed towards the Russian capital overnight.