For residents of Oleshky, the crossing into Ukrainian-controlled territory offered a way out of Russian occupation for elderly people, children and people with disabilities.
The evacuation took place during a rare localized truce brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump.
For Liza Paliy, 19, the journey carried the weight of a separation that has lasted more than two years. She fled occupied Oleshky with her mother and sister, while her father remained behind.
“We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately, two years have already passed,” Paliy said.
An official Ukrainian humanitarian delegation led by Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, arrived in Oleshky on Friday, 30 October. International journalists accompanied the delegation.
The mission operated under a ceasefire that had begun at 3:00 a.m. Kyiv time on Tuesday, 27 October. Ukrainian and Russian military commands agreed to halt combat aviation, drone interdiction, artillery fire and offensive manoeuvres across the Oleshky pocket and surrounding transport routes in Kherson region.
Officials set up evacuation points around the town's central hospital, giving priority to older residents, people with disabilities and families with children.
A humanitarian fleet of 25 buses, with capacity for 750 passengers, carried evacuees alongside specialised ambulances for people with limited mobility.
The civilians and accompanying officials travelled by bus from Oleshky through Russian-occupied Crimea to Anapa, a Russian Black Sea port city. They then boarded charter flights for Gomel, Belarus.
Four aircraft carrying Ukrainian civilians landed in Gomel on Saturday, 31 October.
Davyd Arakhamia, a Ukrainian parliamentary faction leader, said the passengers would be on Ukrainian territory “within hours.”
Residents began arriving in Ukraine on Saturday, crossing the border in the Chernihiv region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “As of now, Ukrainian citizens from Oleshky have crossed the Ukrainian border in the Chernihiv region. All of them will receive the assistance they need.”
Ukrainian officials met the evacuees with posters reading “you are not alone” and “we embrace with our hearts.”
Lubinets said the oldest returning resident was 94 and the youngest was a baby just over one. As one elderly woman stepped off a bus, she said they had escaped from hell.
According to Lubinets, the ceasefire lasted 87 hours and no violations were recorded.
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