Ukraine and Russia to withhold destination figures for Oleshky evacuees

Ukraine will not publish figures showing how many residents evacuated from occupied Oleshky chose to return to Ukraine and how many went to territory controlled by the Russian Federation, Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said at a press conference on 2 November. He said the decision followed agreements reached with Russia.

Lubinets said neither he nor the Russian side would officially release the numbers for the two destinations. He explained that he wanted to avoid turning the evacuation into a comparison of which side received more people, saying such a focus would not help provide an objective account of the operation.

The commissioner pointed instead to the possibility of using the Oleshky evacuation as a model for assistance elsewhere. In his view, the arrangements that made it possible to move residents out of the occupied settlement could potentially be applied to other places where Ukrainian citizens are living in similar conditions.

Oleshky is not the only settlement experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe, Lubinets said. He described comparable conditions in several settlements across Kherson Oblast, as well as in other oblasts. His comments linked the significance of the Oleshky mission to the circumstances of residents beyond the settlement itself, where he said similar humanitarian problems persist.

Addressing the absence of an official breakdown, Lubinets referred to reports already published by non-Ukrainian journalists. He said people could draw their own conclusions from that coverage without the authorities releasing figures. His explanation concerned the numbers choosing each destination and his wish to prevent those numbers from becoming a contest between the sides.

The evacuation also included animals belonging to residents. Lubinets said 105 pets were taken out alongside the people leaving Oleshky, with four parrots among the animals evacuated during the operation.

US First Lady Melania Trump had announced that nearly 800 people were evacuated through the humanitarian mission in Oleshky, Kherson Oblast. According to that announcement, the evacuation took place during a ceasefire. That overall figure was separate from the destination breakdown Lubinets said would not be officially disclosed.

Meanwhile, Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, has said Moscow currently has no plans to carry out further humanitarian operations similar to the evacuation from temporarily occupied Oleshky.