Drone kills former school director in occupied Oleshky after ceasefire ends

A drone strike after the truce

Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Ukrainian-side city administration in Oleshky, said a former school director was killed by a drone after the temporary ceasefire in the occupied town had ended. Rzeczpospolita describes her as loyal to the authorities in Kyiv, and her account was given in an interview with the Ukrinform agency, reported on 5 November. Oleshky lies about 4 km from Kherson, on the left bank of the Dnipro, which Russia occupies. The reports cite one death, that of the former school director. Hasanenko said her team was working with people who had been evacuated from the town in the days before the interview.

“We received information that a former school director was killed in a drone attack, even after the so-called truce.”

Aid shortages and people left behind

Hasanenko said people who received humanitarian aid described a minimum set of products that would not last a week. Many residents who did not leave hid in cellars without access to current information, so they did not know a humanitarian mission was under way. Some refused to leave because they feared Russian so-called filtration measures, which she described as detailed checks. Those residents, she said, believed an evacuation would be a one-way trip with no chance to return home. Some women gave up waiting for the evacuation buses and left the spot, believing the buses had already passed.

“Those who left could not stay in Oleshky, because in both cases death awaited them.”

Hasanenko said the evacuation also picked up people who were waiting for a convoy on the road.

Ceasefire and the White House role

The White House said on 23 October that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a temporary halt in fighting at Oleshky to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered and civilians to be evacuated. The US administration said at the time that First Lady Melania Trump had contributed to the truce. The pause took effect on 27 October at 3:00 Ukrainian time (2:00 in Poland) and remained in force until 1 November at 22:59 Ukrainian time (21:59 in Poland). The office of the First Lady said she would meet representatives of Ukraine and Russia at the White House and give a speech on the ended truce in Oleshky.