Melania Trump Brokers Ceasefire for Ukrainian City, White House Says
The White House announced Friday that First Lady Melania Trump brokered a localized ceasefire for Oleshky, Ukraine — a pause meant to let humanitarian aid in and civilians out — though Washington and Moscow gave different start dates.
First Lady Melania Trump helped broker a temporary pause in fighting around the occupied southern Ukrainian town of Oleshky to secure humanitarian aid and help evacuate civilians, the White House announced on Friday, October 23. Russia and Ukraine agreed to halt military operations around the town, which has been occupied by Russia since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, sits on the front lines of the war, and has been largely cut off from food and electricity, according to the White House statement reported by Reuters and USA Today.
Under the agreement, both countries will temporarily suspend all military action in Oleshky so aid can enter and residents can leave through a designated safe passageway. The first lady said non-military civilian representatives from both countries will visit residents in their homes to assess what help they need, and that residents who wish to evacuate will receive coordinated support and transportation to their preferred destination, in Russia or in Ukraine. She said she had also secured an impartial American media organization to accompany and document the teams on the ground.
About 1,700 people are estimated to still be living in Oleshky, down from a pre-war population of roughly 24,000, and most of those remaining are elderly people in urgent need of medical care, medicine, food and clean water, the first lady said. "The situation in Oleshky is dire," she said in a statement. "It was abundantly clear that without my intervention, the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible." President Donald Trump credited his wife's work, telling reporters the two sides both wanted to do it: "She's done a great job."
Exactly when the pause begins was still being coordinated on Friday. The first lady said the localized ceasefire would begin on Thursday, October 29, while Russia's top military officer, General Valery Gerasimov, told state media it would commence on October 27, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the agreement while saying military personnel were still coordinating the exact timing. The agreement covers Oleshky only — it is not a general ceasefire in the war — and it grows out of the first lady's work since last year to reunite Ukrainian children taken from their families with their families in Ukraine.
