Rare aid convoy to reach occupied Oleshky under temporary ceasefire, Melania Trump involved in brokering first mission of its kind in years

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‘A living hell’: Oleshky captures the world’s attention euronews.com

A humanitarian convoy is expected to reach the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky on Friday, the first operation of its kind in years, under a temporary ceasefire agreed for the town and running until Sunday. Around 2,000 residents remain in a town the head of its military administration, Tetiana Hasanenko, says is practically destroyed. "People have been forced to eat weeds," she told Euronews. The mission — evacuations plus aid distribution, scheduled to last until Friday afternoon — was brokered with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump, whose attention the town captured alongside wider coverage of conditions there since the Kakhovka dam collapse flooded the region more than two years ago. Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk, speaking on the Europe Today programme, called conditions in Oleshky "a living hell" and accused Moscow of holding civilians hostage and staging the operation to cast itself as their rescuer. "There is no way to trust Russians," he said of the ceasefire. The arrangement is narrow and explicitly temporary. Residents who leave face a choice between exiting through Russia itself or occupied Crimea, with no assurance of reaching Ukrainian-controlled territory — or staying in a town where food and basic goods are running out. Meanwhile, Russian strikes on Kyiv's energy grid have continued outside the ceasefire's footprint. What stands out is the mechanism that finally moved the aid. UN machinery had produced resolutions for years while the convoy stayed home; the food arrived only once blocking it cost the occupier more — in international attention reaching the US First Lady's orbit — than letting it through. Humanitarian access emerged as a byproduct of image management, and it expires with the cameras on Sunday.