Hundreds of residents evacuated from Russian-occupied city of Oleshky during humanitarian ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump

Hundreds of people have left Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city in Ukraine’s Kherson region, during a humanitarian ceasefire arranged with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump. The evacuation matters because the remaining residents face severe shortages and the truce enabled civilians to leave a frontline city.

The estimated 2,000 people still in Oleshky were offered the choice of staying with replenished supplies or travelling to Russian-held or Ukrainian-held territory. The evacuation convoy could carry more than 750 people; those heading to Ukraine were routed through Anapa in southern Russia and Belarus, while others travelled to resettle in Russia. Officials said the operation was incident-free, though a correspondent reported claims that some Russian soldiers gave residents misleading information about which buses were bound for Ukraine.