A rare moment of Russian-Ukrainian cooperation to evacuate a front-line town

This transcript was produced with AI technology that converts speech to text. The text is not always reviewed or edited by Reuters journalists and some errors may occur.

It's quite unprecedented. It's limited and covers only the town of Oleshky, which is under Russian control, and also the broader, Kherson region, which is in the southern Ukraine. It started on Tuesday and it is expected to last until the end of the day on Sunday. They started with de-mining roads, and it took several days, and finally, evacuation has begun. We have both ombudsmen from Russia and Ukraine, in Oleshky. And they are actually together, which is very unusual and also quite strongly criticized by some Ukrainians, who see their ombudsman standing side by side with the Russian ombudsman. And it draws some criticism. But Ukrainian ombudsman argued that this is required to save people who been actually starving there. They brought 25 buses, for, that can seat 750 people. But we don't know how many people will decide to leave. These figures are still, kind of, I think we will only know when they arrive in Ukraine. So residents who choose to leave, they will have to go through a very complicated route through Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine and then through Russia itself and then through Belarus and, then to the border crossing with Ukraine. We interviewed several residents in Oleshky, and according to their accounts, it was very, very difficult for a long time. First of all, Oleshky has been under Russian control since early in, in the invasion. Then it was devastated by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, which is nearby. But, really difficult and I would probably even say desperate, situation became this May when regular supplies of food have stopped. And basically people had nothing to eat. If you look at the broader picture, on the, on the Ukrainian side, some officials are saying that it can become an example, for broader de-escalation. But, if you look at what Russian officials are saying Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, he said that this is a special case, which is very difficult to extrapolate to kind of broader, peace talks on how to end the war. [This transcript was produced with AI technology that converts speech to text. The text is not reviewed or edited by Reuters journalists and some errors may occur.]