Five-day truce in Kherson restores daily life for residents
Negotiated by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV, the pause in fighting allowed evacuations and rare outings in southern Ukraine.
By Charlotte Dubois ·
Olena Soboleva and Anna Herasimenko walked the streets of Kherson on a clear autumn weekend without looking up at the sky. The two 21-year-olds met for coffee in a cafe decorated with cat paintings, a routine that had been impossible for months due to constant aerial threats.
A ceasefire held between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1 allowed residents of the city and the nearby town of Oleshky to step outside. The truce, brokered by U.S. First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV, created a brief window of safety in a region where Russian drones usually dominate the airspace.
The primary goal of the agreement was to facilitate evacuations from Oleshky, a town across the Dnipro River that Russian troops have occupied since 2022. Families in Oleshky reported surviving on limited supplies, including pickles and boiled weeds, because food and medicine rarely reached them. Hundreds of residents were loaded onto buses and escorted to northern Ukraine during the pause in fighting.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's ombudsman, credited the first lady with ensuring the ceasefire occurred. He stated that he believes future truces can be upheld and honored. The city of Kherson had been under Russian occupation for several months in 2022 before Ukrainian forces, aided by local partisans, regained control.
Since 2024, Russian forces based across the river have targeted Kherson with first-person-view drones equipped with explosives. The city's highways and streets are draped in heavy mesh nets to protect citizens from these aerial attacks. During the truce, cars gathered near the Greek-style monument at the city's gateway, and families strolled without the overhead protection.
Svitlana Vorobiova, a retired police officer, drove from a safer city to visit her parents. She took photographs with her children at the monument, noting that her son had not seen his hometown in four years. Volodymyr Mykolaienko, a former mayor who was held prisoner in Russia for years, used the quiet weekend to visit his father's grave in a part of the city usually filled with drones.
The ceasefire ended Sunday night. Olena Yehorova, an oncology nurse, watched the sky from a busy bus stop and noted that people were breathing easier. She added that residents still move with caution because trust in Russian forces remains low, and she expects attacks to resume at any time.
