Oleshky Aid Flows Oct. 29; Russia Halts Fire Oct. 27

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to halt military action in Oleshky so aid convoys can enter the flooded city, but residents must wait until Oct. 29 for the corridor to open. The White House said Friday that Melania Trump and her representative worked directly with Russian and Ukrainian leadership to set the terms of the localized arrangement.

Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said Russian forces will stop firing at 4 a.m. local time on Oct. 27, two days before the humanitarian operation begins. Ukraine's top negotiator, David Arakhamia, wrote on Telegram that the operation would start once the ceasefire takes hold.

The White House said both sides will send non-military teams into homes to arrange transport for residents who want to leave for either Russia or Ukraine. Melania Trump said in a statement: "The situation in Oleshky is dire." She said the remaining population is mostly elderly people who urgently need medical attention, medicine, food and clean water.

Oleshky sits across the Dnipro River from Kherson and now has between 1,700 and 2,000 residents, including about 50 children, according to the White House. Before the war the population was roughly 24,000. The city was about 90 per cent flooded after the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed.

The Kremlin said an evacuation would take at least a few days, and praised Melania Trump. It said work was under way to ease conditions in Oleshky after Russian President Vladimir Putin told Pope Leo he was ready to co-operate on the issue; the two spoke by telephone last week. Arakhamia said the accord followed a long process involving both Melania Trump and Pope Leo.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Hudson Institute that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States agreed to hold technical-level talks in Abu Dhabi in the first half of November. He said any peace deal would need strong security guarantees and 10 years of funding for Ukraine's army.

Fighting continued on Friday. Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport briefly suspended operations because of a Ukrainian drone threat, and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences downed 21 drones headed for the capital over two hours. The two sides also exchanged 270 prisoners each. Ukraine's acting prosecutor general, Anton Kovalskyi, said more than 19,000 Ukrainian civilians, including 762 children, have been killed since the full-scale invasion began.