White House sets Oleshky humanitarian pause for October 29

A temporary ceasefire in Oleshky begins October 29.

The White House announced the agreement on Friday. It credits First Lady Melania Trump with securing the arrangement. The pause allows humanitarian aid to enter the Russian-occupied city. It also permits preparation for civilian evacuation.

Oleshky sits across the Dnipro River from Kherson. The city had a pre-war population of roughly 24,000. The White House estimates between 1,700 and 2,000 residents remain. About 50 of those residents are children. The statement notes that 90 per cent of the city is flooded following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam.

Melania Trump described the situation as dire in the White House statement. She said the remaining population is mostly elderly. She noted they urgently need medical attention, medicine, food, and clean water. The statement said she and her representative worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leadership to set the terms.

David Arakhamia, Ukraine’s top negotiator, confirmed the humanitarian operation will start once the ceasefire takes hold. He wrote on Telegram that the accord followed a long process involving Melania Trump and Pope Leo. The deal creates a corridor for people to leave and assistance to enter.

The Kremlin said an evacuation would take at least a few days. It praised Melania Trump and said work was under way to ease conditions in Oleshky. This follows a telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Pope Leo last week. Valery Gerasimov, Russian Chief of the General Staff, said Russian forces will stop firing from 4 a.m. local time on October 27 to support the operation.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said negotiators from Ukraine, Russia, and the United States agreed to hold technical-level talks in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November. He told the Hudson Institute he had spoken with U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff after their meeting with Putin earlier in the week. Zelenskyy stated that any peace deal would need strong security guarantees and 10 years of funding for Ukraine’s army.

These announcements follow two weeks of criticism from European allies, Democrats, and some Republicans over U.S. involvement in the war. President Donald Trump struck a deal with Putin to import diesel and later announced a ceasefire on energy attacks. Russia showed no sign of halting its fire. On October 14, Zelenskyy said SpaceX had restricted Starlink service, which Ukrainian officials say hampers strikes and drone defence.

Fighting continued on Friday. Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport briefly suspended operations because of a Ukrainian drone threat. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences downed 21 drones headed for the capital over two hours. The two sides also exchanged 270 prisoners each. Anton Kovalskyi, Ukraine’s acting prosecutor general, said more than 19,000 Ukrainian civilians, including 762 children, have been killed since the full-scale invasion began.