Russia observes rare Ukraine ceasefire to allow evacuations

More than 500 residents from Russian-occupied Oleshky to be repatriated to Ukraine via Russia and Belarus

Russia was observing a US-backed local ceasefire in southern Ukraine on Friday to allow residents of the devastated town of Oleshky to be evacuated via a circuitous route through Russia and Belarus, marking the most significant pause in fighting since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Residents were instructed on local Telegram channels to gather outside the town's main hospital at 10am Kyiv time to board buses bound for Anapa, in Russia's Krasnodar region, Ukrainian officials and volunteers told the FT. From there, they would be flown to Belarus before being transported back to Ukrainian-held territory.

Officials and volunteers were at pains to reassure residents that they would ultimately return to Ukraine despite the lengthy detour, which contrasts sharply with the 15-minute drive it took before the war to cross the Dnipro river and reach the city of Kherson.

"Everyone who wishes to leave Oleshky will be given the opportunity to do so safely. At the same time, those who decide to remain will be able to stay and will receive all the necessary humanitarian assistance," Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, who is leading the effort on the Ukrainian side, wrote on Telegram.

More than 500 people have registered to be evacuated back to Ukrainian-held territory, Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said during a parliamentary session.

Fewer than 2,000 people are thought to remain in Oleshky, down from 24,000 before Russia captured the city in 2022. It came under fire from both sides after Ukraine retook Kherson on the other side of the Dnipro river, with Russian troops launching drones from Oleshky and Ukrainian forces firing back in an attempt to hit Russian supply lines. In 2023, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam by Russian forces flooded Oleshky, killing hundreds.

Conditions have deteriorated sharply over the past year, with drone strikes and mined roads cutting residents off from food and medical supplies, Ukrainian officials, volunteers and former residents told the FT. An international campaign and repeated appeals by Pope Leo XIV drew attention to their plight earlier this year.

The local ceasefire was reached in part through the Pope's involvement as well as mediation efforts by US first lady Melania Trump, as part of Washington's renewed push to end the war in Ukraine.

Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the US are due to resume peace talks in Abu Dhabi in early November, after discussions were suspended in February following the outbreak of war in Iran.

With Donald Trump's Republican Party facing midterm elections on Tuesday, the US president has stepped up pressure on Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries, which he blamed for rising diesel prices.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged that Ukraine over the past two weeks has largely refrained from striking Russian refineries, though one facility in Samara was hit on Friday morning. Ukrainian drone manufacturer Fire Point said on Friday that Russia's Novokuybyshevsk refinery had been targeted overnight. Social media footage showed the facility in flames.

Ahead of the Oleshky evacuation, Russia and Ukraine observed a local truce for three days in which Russian forces demined the main road heading to Oleshky. Both sides said they had not registered any ceasefire violations, an unprecedented occurrence since 2022.

The ceasefire also held in the city of Kherson, just 6km across the Dnipro river from Oleshky. Russian forces captured Kherson in March 2022 but were driven out later that year. Its remaining 64,000 residents -- barely a quarter of the prewar population -- have since endured relentless Russian drone attacks launched from the opposite bank, often deliberately targeting civilians.

Since the ceasefire began on Tuesday, residents in Kherson have ventured back on to the streets and driven their cars without the constant threat of drone strikes that has hung over the city for the past three years.

The sudden silence has left many bewildered. "It really feels as if that terror, when just going out on the street is scary, never happened," one Kherson resident told the FT via text. Scores of people travelled to the "red zone", the riverside area most exposed to Russian drone and artillery attacks, to check on their properties.

The truce remained strictly limited to Kherson and Oleshky, however.

On Thursday, a Russian jet-powered drone hit a railway platform in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing 14 people. Five people, including two teenage girls, also died on Thursday from strikes in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine and in the northern city of Chernihiv.

A wave of ballistic missiles also hit Kyiv on Thursday evening, with Ukraine's air force reporting that it had not succeeded in intercepting any of them.

Writing on X, Zelenskyy denounced the attacks as "deliberate strikes against civilians, brazen in their cruelty, and the Russians are carrying them out right as the humanitarian operation in Oleshky is unfolding".