'We escaped from hell': Ukrainians who ate grass to survive Russian-occupied Oleshky are reunited with families after Melania Trump's truce
Residents evacuated from Russian-occupied Oleshky have now crossed the border into Ukraine and are safe, in a picture posted on X by Anton Gerashchenko.Evacuees from Russian-occupied Oleshky, whose residents survived on grass and lost 20 kg or more before Saturday's evacuation, which President Volodymyr Zelensky said was brokered with direct help from the United States and Melania Trump.Rescue workers carry caged cats evacuated from Oleshky; some returnees from the occupied city were so weakened by starvation they had to be carried off buses on stretchers.A heavily damaged commercial building amid rubble in Oleshky, the Russian-occupied city whose civilians were evacuated on Saturday via a complex route through Crimea, Russia's Anapa and Belarus.
Hundreds of starving civilians evacuated from Russian-occupied Oleshky arrived in Ukrainian-held territory on Saturday after a 24-hour odyssey through Crimea, Russia and Belarus, with the ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump running until 11pm Sunday local time. The oldest evacuee was 94, the youngest just over one year old; one woman, Larisa, 54, had lost a third of her body weight during the occupation.
Svitlana Yermakova said she cycled through minefields to find food, chopping 'grass and squash just to hold on', with her dog Manila.
President Zelensky thanked Melania Trump directly, while Pope Leo XIV called for the truce to spur broader Ukraine-Russia peace efforts.
'It's a kill zone there,' said Oleksandr Styopin, 75, lighting a cigarette as he stepped off the bus after four years under Russian occupation.
