KHERSON – Civilians in Ukraine’s southeastern Kherson region braced Sunday for the end of a localized ceasefire that has produced the most substantial pause in fighting between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine 4½ years ago.
The White House said U.S. first lady Melania Trump helped broker the limited truce, which began early Tuesday and was due to expire Sunday evening. The pause enabled residents trapped in the front-line city of Oleshky to leave in a rare joint evacuation operation that concluded Saturday.
About 2,000 civilians were believed to be in Oleshky when the temporary ceasefire began. They could evacuate to areas controlled by either Ukraine or Russia, or stay in the city after receiving additional food and medical supplies. Authorities did not disclose final evacuation figures to protect those who remained.
At the Ukrainian border Saturday, relatives waited for a first glimpse of family members. Residents of nearby villages stood along the highway, waving flags and flashlights as the humanitarian convoy passed.
Elsewhere, however, Moscow and Kyiv continued launching airstrikes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia was still attacking the country’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter.
In a social media post, Zelenskyy said hundreds of thousands of families had lost electricity overnight as Russia attempted to capitalize on Ukraine’s limited air-defense capabilities.
“The intensity of the strikes is extremely high, and the Russians are trying to take maximum advantage of the shortage of ballistic missile interceptors,” he wrote on X.
Final day of ceasefire brings some respite
People in the Ukrainian city of Kherson remained composed Sunday, even as they knew the brief period of calm would soon come to an end.
“Don’t be afraid, keep holding on,” Oleksandr Knyha, director of the Mykola Kulish Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater, told the audience while opening a concert.
The theater stages performances every Saturday and Sunday. This weekend’s programs coincided with the ceasefire, and the company plans to continue performing next weekend despite warnings from local officials that Russian forces have deployed more weapons and personnel. Some residents also fear shelling will intensify.
“Of course, we want peace to finally come,” Knyha said. But “we’ve been working on the front line for four years,” he added, referring to Kherson itself. The theater has never called off a performance.
“Whatever happens, the show is not canceled,” he said.
The company now performs in a basement while preparing another bomb shelter. Around 100 of the theater’s 120 employees remain working in Kherson, and none has left the city.
Alla Vasylenko, a 58-year-old costume maker, said the quiet brought by the short-lived truce was unsettling. “Nothing will change. Everything will go back to how it was before the ceasefire, because believing the Russians means not believing yourself,” she said.
She does not intend to leave. “I have 10 dogs, so I can’t leave,” she said. “They urge us to leave, but you need somewhere to go and the means to get there.”
The journey alone would cost between 30,000 and 50,000 hryvnias, a substantial expense for her, she said. “Until we liberate the left bank, we have no certainty this will end,” she added, referring to the Russian-occupied portion of the region.
For many people in Kherson, a city that endured Russian occupation, that conviction is what keeps them there.
Knyha is originally from Oleshky, on the occupied left bank, and once traveled from there to work in Kherson. He still hopes to return home. “That’s also what keeps me here,” he said.
On the ceasefire’s final day, the theater presented a concert centered on a “musical map of Ukraine.” The program featured songs from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, to the Carpathian Mountains in the country’s southwest. “This is also our job — to unite people and give them hope,” Knyha said.
Russian and Ukrainian drone attacks continue
Russian drones attacked Ukraine’s Kyiv region for a second straight day, injuring a woman and damaging homes, energy infrastructure and a retail business, regional authorities said.
Ukraine’s air force said in its daily report Sunday that Russian forces had launched 433 drones overnight, with 371 destroyed or jammed.
In Russia, more than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow, regional Gov. Gleb Nikitin said Sunday.
Nikitin said an industrial facility in the town of Kstovo suffered “significant damage,” but he provided no further information. Russian media later said the attack ignited a fire at the Kstovo oil refinery and published images showing dark smoke rising above the horizon.
Zelenskyy said Sunday that Ukrainian forces had also struck a plant producing missile components and air-defense facilities in Russia’s southern Rostov region.
“We are justly defending ourselves against Russian aggression and doing everything to reduce Russia’s capability to continue it,” Zelenskyy wrote.
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Associated Press writer Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed.
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