3 a.m. Truce Opens Oleshky Route as 2,000 Await Aid Across Dnipro

A localized ceasefire took hold near the Dnipro River on Tuesday, opening a corridor for an aid delivery to Oleshky as missiles struck Kyiv.

The pause in fighting began at 3 a.m. to allow supplies into the Russian-held town later this week, according to her office, which said Melania Trump led talks with civilian negotiators from Russia and Ukraine after meeting U.N. officials briefed on conditions there. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, along with the militaries of both countries, issued separate statements confirming the ceasefire had begun. It is scheduled to run through Saturday or longer.

Up to 2,000 people remain in Oleshky with food and medicine running short, the U.N. said, adding that explosive mines and drone attacks in the area prevent residents from leaving. Negotiators on the aid mission said doctors, medicines, food supplies and water would be delivered before evacuation corridors open. The delivery precedes a new round of U.S.-brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine expected next month to address the war, now in its fifth year.

Minutes after 3 a.m., ballistic missile explosions struck Kyiv and air alerts sounded across multiple parts of the country. Attacks late Monday damaged the grounds of a university in the capital, killing one person and injuring 10, city officials said. In Kharkiv, authorities reported that strikes late Monday killed two people and injured four. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in an online post shortly afterward: "It is important that the world sees that Russia is showing nothing but a desire to kill and continue waging war."

Oleshky sits in the partially occupied Kherson region, about 550 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, where the Dnipro River divides Russian and Ukrainian forces. Moscow's forces took the town on the first day of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Floodwaters from a dam collapse inundated the town in June 2023. The city of Kherson, the regional administrative capital, lies across the river; Russian forces seized it early in the 2022 invasion and withdrew several months later. Previous ceasefire attempts have been halted by mistrust between Russia and Ukraine, according to the source article.

The United States is not a party to the conflict, but U.S.-brokered negotiations have shaped the terms of the pause in fighting near Oleshky. The town changed hands during the initial phase of Russia's 2022 invasion and has since remained under Moscow's control.