A rare humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine's Kherson region, which has allowed civilians to evacuate the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, was due to end on Sunday night at 22:59 Ukrainian time (21:00 GMT). The limited pause in hostilities began on Tuesday and, according to the source material, was brokered with the help of US First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo. It was initially confined to Oleshky before being expanded across the wider Kherson region, and it had held on the front line even as fighting continued elsewhere.
Oleshky has been occupied by Russia since the first days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The city had been trapped between the Dnipro river on one side and Russian forces on the other, with exit routes mined and exposed to drone attacks. Residents who remained there suffered severe shortages of food, water and electricity, and many resorted to cooking garden weeds in order to survive.
The truce allowed Oleshky residents to leave if they chose to, and Saturday brought emotional scenes of reunions between loved ones who had not seen each other for years. Although Ukrainian military positions lie just 5km (3.1 miles) from Oleshky, evacuees had to travel through Russian-occupied territory to southern Russia, from where they flew to Belarus before finally being driven across Ukraine's northern border. Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the oldest evacuee was 94 years old and the youngest was one.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had struck energy infrastructure in four regions overnight on Saturday, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine said a separate overnight strike killed two people, including a 13-year-old girl, in the Vinnytsia region. In Russia's Rostov region, Ukraine hit a major missile fuel producer, causing a fire and damaging four production facilities, according to Zelensky.
Repair works to restore electricity continued in Ukraine throughout the day. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region said most customers had their connections restored by early evening, but more than 60,000 people were still without power. Because of regular attacks on energy infrastructure, emergency power cuts have been introduced across the country, and even in the capital Kyiv electricity is cut off for most of the day, with water supplies also disrupted.
In a social media post, Zelensky said the intensity of Russian strikes had been "extremely high" over the past week, adding that Russia was "trying to take maximum advantage of the shortage of ballistic missile interceptors". He said Ukraine communicated its need for Patriot missiles, described as the only effective weapon for downing Russia's ballistic missiles, to the US, Europe and other partners "every day". He thanked countries for their support so far and for longer-term commitments, but called again for more immediate aid.
Sources: BBC News World.