Russia-occupied Oleshky evacuees arrive in Belarus, Ukraine next

Three planes carrying evacuees from the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky touched down at Gomel airport in Belarus on Saturday, according to the Belta state news agency. The refugees, eager to journey to Ukraine, traveled by bus across the Crimean peninsula to the Russian town of Anapa before taking to the skies for their final leg of the trip.

The operation represents a joint humanitarian effort by opposing sides, marking the first of its kind in the nearly four-year conflict. The Russian Defense Ministry stated that the evacuees were transported aboard Russian military aircraft from Anapa to Gomel in Belarus, accompanied by Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets.

No exact numbers have been released yet regarding how many people were rescued from Oleshky during the evacuation, which marks the first humanitarian operation of this scale since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Over 200 residents opted to flee to Ukraine, while dozens chose to travel to Russian-controlled territories under a US-brokered ceasefire that has been in place since Tuesday.

Both Russian and Ukrainian sources say that residents were given the choice to leave or stay in the town, which has been severely affected by food and medical shortages for months. Dozens of evacuees were briefly housed in Simferopol in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, before embarking on their journey. More than 1,000 people may still be residing in Oleshky, a frontline city that has been cut off from the outside world since the war started.

Before the war, Oleshky boasted a population of around 24,000. The region, heavily mined and featuring numerous anti-tank barriers, has been sealed off by the Russian military, with Ukrainian drone attacks posing a particular danger in the area. Lubinets and his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, visited Oleshky on Friday to personally oversee the evacuation.

They expressed gratitude to US First Lady Melania Trump for facilitating the ceasefire, which is set to last until and including Sunday, and discussed the possibility of further humanitarian operations to aid those in need in frontline towns. Additional reporting by Reuters.