Residents evacuated from Russian-occupied Oleshky reunited with families in Ukraine

Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians left the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky on October 31 and crossed into Ukrainian-controlled territory, where they were reunited with family members. The evacuation was made possible by a short ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, which ran from Tuesday to the end of Sunday. Evacuees travelled by bus through Crimea to the Russian town of Anapa, then flew to Belarus before crossing into Ukraine in the north. Reunions took place in the Chernihiv region. Many people arrived by bus or ambulance, and witnesses described them as starved and exhausted. During the occupation, residents had faced severe shortages of food, electricity, gas, and medicine. It was the first ceasefire of this kind in more than four years of full-scale war.