Emotional reunions as residents evacuated from Ukraine's Oleshky meet their families

Residents evacuated from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky were reunited with their relatives on Saturday after reaching Ukrainian-held territory. The evacuation operation, carried out under a ceasefire, had begun on Friday.

Evacuees wrapped in Ukrainian flags stepped off buses at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border to be reunited with family members. Volunteers with hand-drawn welcome signs handed coffee to the weary people who had travelled by bus and plane through Russia and Belarus. Residents of nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and torches to greet the convoy. Families were reunited at a site in the Chernihiv region of northern Ukraine after arriving in buses and ambulances; they had previously travelled via Crimea and Russia.

The ceasefire in Ukraine's southern Kherson region began early on Tuesday and was expected to continue through Sunday evening. The White House said First Lady Melania Trump helped broker the localised deal, while Pope Leo XIV pressed Russia and Ukraine to allow aid deliveries and evacuations. The ceasefire measures will remain in place until the end of Sunday 1 November.

Tetiana Leonidivna, 71, thanked the Ukrainian soldiers who helped her to flee. 'We love them, we love them,' she said through tears. 'We know that they are protecting us. And a deep bow to them, and a deep bow to their parents, for having such children. I am proud, I am simply proud.'

Holding a cigarette between shaking fingers, 48-year-old Ivan Yevhenovych described his last months in Oleshky. 'It was very difficult. There were a lot of drones. It was hard to move around the streets,' he said. 'Since spring, there hasn't really been any staple food left. People had a little bit of their own reserves. We are thrifty people.' He said landmines or drone strikes were killing residents every day.

An estimated 2,000 people remained in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of being evacuated to Ukrainian- or Russian-held territory, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies. 'Many people stayed behind and didn't want to leave,' Yevhenovych said. 'Some for their houses, some for their animals.'

Relatives and volunteers with the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières and World Central Kitchen welcomed the evacuees as they arrived at the border, ready to provide aid and food, including for their pets. Ukrainian authorities, seeking to protect those who remained and safeguard future humanitarian missions, have not said how many residents evacuated Oleshky and have restricted details of their route. Melania Trump posted on social media on Friday that the humanitarian convoy could safely evacuate more than 750 people.

Liza Paliy, 19, waited at the border for her father, whom she last saw more than two and a half years earlier when she fled the occupied city with her mother and sister. 'We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately two years have already passed,' she said.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, hailed the humanitarian mission as a win. 'This is an extremely important moment. Behind us are difficult negotiations, agreements, preparations, and an enormous amount of work. But most importantly, the people who waited so long to be rescued are finally safe,' he said in an online post. Lubinets said evacuees ranged in age from just over one year old to 94, and they brought pets, including dogs, cats, a parrot and a raccoon. He said he hoped the Oleshky truce could be replicated elsewhere, saying it 'could form the basis of a new mechanism for responding to the most difficult humanitarian crises'.

Yana Lantratova, Russia's human rights commissioner, said both sides have agreed to conduct regular humanitarian missions in and around Oleshky; Lubinets did not mention this development. 'The mission has concluded, but, unfortunately, living conditions in Oleshky remain extremely difficult,' she said. 'We will make every effort to support those residents who decided to stay.'