Starved Oleshky residents reach Ukraine after years of occupation: 'We came back from hell'

Dmytro had been counting the days. All 1,711 of them. Standing near the Ukrainian-Belarusian border on Saturday, his eyes fixed on the horizon, he waited for the bus carrying his wife Larisa — until the moment he kissed her over and over and held her with a determination, according to CNN, that looked like he would never let go again.

Larisa, 54, had lost a third of her body weight during her years trapped in Oleshky, a southern Ukrainian town of roughly 24,000 pre-war residents on the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro River. She was one of hundreds of civilians who arrived back in Ukrainian-held territory Saturday after a six-day localised ceasefire — the longest such pause since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 — allowed an evacuation brokered with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV.

It's hard for everyone in the country; there are so many people in the same situation as me. There are people in different situations, and some are even worse off. We're waiting for all this to end, for peace to come, and for victory.— Larisa, evacuee from Oleshky

The scenes at the border reception point captured the scale of what residents had endured. Draped in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags, evacuees descended from buses looking gaunt and hollow-cheeked. Among those returning, the eldest was 94 years old and the youngest was an infant barely past one year of age. One elderly man in a wheelchair told Reuters he had lost 20 kilograms over the past year. Officials from Ukraine greeted them holding signs that read 'You're not alone' and 'We embrace with our hearts', as villagers from surrounding communities stood along the highway holding flags and flashlights.

We are coming from hell. It's a kill zone there.— Oleksandr Styopin, 75, retired electrical engineer and evacuee

The journey out of Oleshky was itself an ordeal. With active combat positions along the heavily fortified Dnipro River blocking any direct route to Ukrainian-held Kherson, residents had to travel a roundabout course spanning thousands of kilometres — first by bus through Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian town of Anapa, then by plane to Belarus, and finally overland into Ukraine's Chernihiv region.

Ukraine's human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets accompanied the group throughout, becoming the first senior Ukrainian official to openly travel to Russian-occupied territory since the start of the war. Footage he posted showed scores of Oleshky residents making their way off a plane at a Belarusian airfield — a largely elderly group, with some needing stretchers or wheelchairs, carrying little luggage. Dogs were unloaded in cages.

Heated tents, food stations and veterinary posts had been erected at the border by the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and World Central Kitchen. The director of Chernihiv Regional Hospital, Andriy Zhydenko, warned that the effects of prolonged malnutrition would require careful management — consuming too much food too quickly after starvation can itself be dangerous, he told CNN.

Oleshky fell under Russian control in the opening days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Before the evacuation, the town's pre-war population of around 24,000 had already dropped to somewhere between 1,700 and 2,000, Ukrainian officials said, with the Institute for the Study of War estimating that roughly 40 per cent had escaped to Ukrainian-controlled territory in the early stages of the fighting. A catastrophic flood struck the town in 2023 after the collapse of the nearby Nova Kakhovka Dam. Commercial supply routes collapsed entirely in May. By September, Ukrainian authorities reported the town had run out of food, electricity, gas and medicine.

Evacuees described conditions that had grown steadily more desperate. Svitlana Yermakova told Reuters she had ridden a bicycle through minefields to reach a nearby village to find food for herself and her dog. One woman recounted going without bread for over a year, keeping herself alive on tomatoes and cucumbers she had grown herself. Styopin described sitting in his apartment for months, a cigarette between his teeth, listening to the radio, too afraid to go outside.

For the last two months I was living with a drone above my head. It's more than fear; it's an internal dread that's always present inside you.— Oleksandr Styopin, 75, evacuee

When the ceasefire took hold on Tuesday, Styopin said, Russian soldiers moved in to clear mines from the roads and remove the bodies of the dead. 'There was a destroyed armoured personnel carrier with bodies inside,' he said. 'There was a body in pieces, half here and half there.' 'The Russians took them all away,' he said. On Friday morning, as he was finally leaving, a de-mining explosion sent shrapnel into his suitcase. He went back for another bag and ran nearly a kilometre through heavy rain to the bus.

My heart was burning. I thought I would crawl there in order to leave.— Oleksandr Styopin, 75, evacuee

Many evacuees said they had not trusted the ceasefire would hold. Vladyslav, 24, who declined to give his surname for security reasons, said his family had stayed partly because they feared Russian authorities would prevent him from leaving — he was of military-draft age in Ukraine. They survived by growing vegetables and raising animals.

These last four days, we didn't believe we would make it out. We thought it was just another provocation – they would declare a ceasefire and then blow us up along the way. We were terrified, but we went anyway, because there might not be another chance.— Vladyslav, 24, evacuee

Dozens of relatives gathered at the border, scanning each arriving bus. Liza Paliy, 19, had been separated from her father for more than two and a half years; he had remained behind to watch over the family home after she, her mother and sister left early in the war. Daria Pavlyn was hoping for word of her father Mykhailo, with whom she had lost contact about a month before — he had stayed when arrangements to care for their property fell through, and had since been too afraid to attempt the journey alone without Russian occupation documents. As convoys arrived under tight operational security, it remained unclear whether either man was among those on board.

Strict reporting restrictions were imposed on the mission by Ukrainian authorities, who prohibited disclosure of the exact number of evacuees or the precise border crossing used, citing the need to protect those who stayed behind and to keep open the possibility of future humanitarian corridors. US First Lady Melania Trump had previously stated the operation was organised to evacuate more than 750 people; the exact number who returned had not been confirmed by officials as of Saturday.

Not everyone left. Some residents chose to remain in Oleshky despite the ongoing absence of gas, electricity and running water. Others chose to go to Russia; Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova said those evacuees were received at a temporary accommodation centre in Simferopol in Crimea. Lantratova said she and Lubinets had agreed to carry out regular humanitarian missions — 'a very important step,' she wrote on Telegram.

Now we have a unique positive experience how to negotiate with the Russian side with the coordination role of Melania Trump. We have a lot of similar villages where we have right now the same problems with food and medicine. Our idea is to continue. But it doesn't only depend on Ukraine.— Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the arrivals on Telegram, thanking Trump for her mediation role and calling on the world to sustain its attention. Zelensky wrote that 'when the world pays attention, people are saved.' Overnight Russian drone strikes on energy and rail infrastructure had also cut power to 280,000 households across the Kyiv and Dnipro regions, he reported — a stark reminder that the ceasefire around Oleshky was an isolated exception in a war still raging elsewhere.

Further steps toward de-escalation and real progress toward peace are also needed.— Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

The ceasefire was set to expire Sunday evening. What happens to those who remain in Oleshky — and whether the diplomatic channel that opened this corridor can be used again — is now the question hanging over the operation's success.

Why it matters — The Oleshky evacuation is the most significant humanitarian pause between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia's 2022 invasion, and both sides' human rights commissioners say they have agreed to pursue further such missions — raising the question of whether a narrow diplomatic channel has opened in a war otherwise defined by its absence of them.

Reported by com.au, smh.com.au, 7news.com.au, independent.co.uk, tvpworld.com, aljazeera.com, kyivpost.com