Civilians in Kherson prepare for return of war as localised ceasefire ends

Civilians in Ukraine’s south-eastern Kherson region have prepared for the end of a localised ceasefire that has marked the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since the Russian invasion began nearly five years ago.

The White House said that US first lady Melania Trump helped to broker the limited truce, which began early on Tuesday and was scheduled to end on Sunday evening.

The pause in hostilities allowed besieged residents in the front-line city of Oleshky to be evacuated in a rare joint operation that ended on Saturday.

Mr Trump said on social media: “The ceasefire across Oleshky and the surrounding Kherson region has provided residents with the freedom to move, access to food, clean water, medicine, plus a renewed sense of dignity without the constant threat of attack.

“Let Oleshky become the starting point for lasting peace.”

An estimated 2,000 civilians were in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of evacuating to territory controlled by Ukraine or Russia, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.

For the safety of those who have stayed, exact numbers were not released after the evacuation.

At the Ukrainian border on Saturday, family members waited for a glimpse of their loved ones, while residents of nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and flashlights to greet the humanitarian convoy.

But Moscow and Kyiv have continued aerial strikes elsewhere, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky saying on Sunday that Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy systems before winter.

Hundreds of thousands of families were left without power overnight as Moscow sought to exploit Ukraine’s shortage of air defences, Mr Zelensky said on social media.

“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 said in a post on X.

Residents in the Ukrainian city of Kherson remained calm on Sunday, despite knowing that the quiet of the ceasefire would soon end.

Elsewhere, a Russian attack killed three people, including a 13-year-old girl, in the Ukrainian region of Vinnytsia when a drone hit the grounds of a vocational school, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. Four others were wounded, including two five-year-old girls and a 16-year-old boy.

Russian drone attacks also continued to target Ukraine’s Kyiv region for a second consecutive day, injuring a woman and damaging homes, energy infrastructure and a retail establishment, regional authorities said.

In its daily report on Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said that Moscow’s forces attacked Ukraine with 433 drones overnight, of which 371 were destroyed or suppressed.

Elsewhere, more than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the skies of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, local governor Gleb Nikitin said on Sunday.

Mr Nikitin said an industrial building in the town of Kstovo had sustained “significant damage”, but did not give further details. Russian media outlets later reported that the attack sparked a blaze at the Kstovo oil refinery, sharing images of black plumes of smoke over the horizon.

Local officials later placed limits on petrol sales in the region after lines appeared at filling stations, Russian media outlets reported, citing Nizhny Novgorod’s regional government. Diesel sales were not affected, they said.

Mr Zelensky said on Sunday that Kyiv had also struck a factory used to make missile components and air defence facilities inside Russia’s southern Rostov region.

“We are justly defending ourselves against Russian aggression and doing everything to reduce Russia’s capability to continue it,” Mr Zelensky wrote.