Humanitarian aid is poised to roll into the stricken city of Oleshky, a Ukrainian official said Thursday, as a localised ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine stretched into a third day and military units cleared away landmines. Moscow and Kyiv have observed the truce in and around the devastated southern Ukrainian city since Tuesday, but remain otherwise locked in the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion more than 4 ½ years ago. Previous efforts to secure ceasefires either never worked out or the truces quickly fell apart.
Elsewhere, a jet-powered Russian drone hit two passenger trains stopped at a station in Dnipro in central Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 14 more, including a 40-year-old man whose legs were amputated, officials said. Read moreAt least 13 killed in 'horrific' Russian drone strike at Ukraine train station Also, a Russian cruise missile killed two 15-year-old girls in the northern city of Chernihiv, and three more civilians died when a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the central Ukraine city of Kremenchuk, authorities said. In all, 56 people were injured in the strikes, including 10 children.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defences downed 1,214 Ukrainian drones overnight in one of the largest drone attacks launched by Kyiv. Around half of the drones were heading to the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. The planned six-day ceasefire around Russian-occupied Oleshky has brought a rare and welcome stillness for civilians in the nearby city of Kherson, which is held by Ukraine and has also been wracked by the war.
After years under fire, a rare quiet settles over Ukrainian city as truce holds To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
Both sides thanked US first lady Melania Trump for what the White House said was her role in helping broker the temporary ceasefire so food and medical supplies can be delivered to some 2,000 desperate people trapped in Oleshky. Pope Leo XIV also pressed for a truce. His Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, confirmed the truce was holding and that Russian engineers are working on demining Oleshky's roads.
The mechanics of how that might work are unclear. Lantratova said she and her team were on their way to Oleshky for the aid delivery, adding that the operation was five months in the making. Russian and Ukrainian representatives met in the Belarus city of Homel on Thursday to fly together to the Kherson region, Belarus state media reported.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
