‘We escaped from hell’: Hundreds of starving Ukrainians return home from Russian-occupied Oleshky under ceasefire deal
Starved and exhausted Ukrainians said they “escaped from hell” as they arrived home from Russia-occupied territory on Saturday.
Hundreds of civilians have been evacuated from the town of Oleshky, crossing back into Ukrainian-held territory under a rare localised ceasefire aimed at preventing mass starvation on the southern frontline.
One evacuee, an elderly man in a wheelchair, said he had lost 20 kg over the past year, becoming so weak that he required hospital treatment. Another, Svitlana Yermakova, said that they had to eat grass to survive food shortages.
“We chopped grass and squash … just to hold on,” she said, adding that she risked riding by bicycle through minefields to a nearby village to get food for herself and her dog, Manila.
The oldest returning resident was 94, while the youngest was a baby just over one.
One elderly woman said that they had escaped from hell as she exited a bus bring Ukrainians back. She was tearfully greeted by another woman wrapped in Ukraine’s national blue and yellow flag, one of many emotional scenes caught on camera.
The arrivals on Saturday follow a complex, multi-leg rescue mission across three countries, brokered with the involvement of US First Lady Melania Trump and appeals from Pope Leo XIV, marking the most significant humanitarian pause between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia launched its full-scale invasion four and a half years ago.
They first travelled by bus via Crimea to the Russian town of Anapa, before flying to Belarus from where they continued to Ukraine.
A video shared by Ukraine’s ombudsman showed dozens of Oleshky residents slowly disembarking from a plane at a Belarusian airfield, many of them elderly.
Some required help to walk, and a few were carried on stretchers or in wheelchairs. They carried minimal luggage – only a bag or two. Dogs were unloaded from the plane in cages.
At a border reception point in northern Ukraine, aid workers from the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and World Central Kitchen set up heated tents, food stations, and veterinary posts for pets brought out by evacuees.
Dozens of relatives gathered by the road, waiting to see whether family members they had not seen in years were among the passengers.
Among those scanning arriving buses was 19-year-old Liza Paliy, who had not seen her father in more than two and a half years. She fled the occupied Kherson region with her mother and sister early in the war while he stayed behind to guard their home.
“We thought at that time that it would be a month, two maximum, and we would return, but unfortunately, two years have already passed,” Ms Paliy said.
