Melania Trump's ceasefire in Ukraine's Oleshky holds for 30 hours without incident as demining is clearing an evacuation route
Devastation in Russian-occupied Oleshky, where a local ceasefire took effect at 3am to clear the way for an aid mission for the 6,000 people, including 200 children, trapped and desperately short of food and medicine.
Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets confirmed 30 hours had passed without a single incident in Oleshky, with demining now under way along the planned evacuation route for roughly 2,000 trapped civilians. Melania Trump announced the six-day truce last Friday after acting as the agreement's "exclusive intermediary" between Russian and Ukrainian governments, with Pope Leo XIV having also pressed Putin for a halt just days after lung cancer surgery.
Residents fear Russia will reroute evacuees to occupied Crimea or Russian territory rather than Ukrainian-controlled areas.
Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine are now expected in Abu Dhabi as soon as 10 November, days after the US midterm elections — the first direct negotiations the two sides would have held since Trump lifted sanctions on Moscow.
Trump officials are also weighing lifting sanctions on Russia's state investment fund — long called the Kremlin's 'slush fund' — as part of broader economic concessions tied to ending the war.
