Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
When the fighting stopped around Oleshky, the cameras kept filming.
Kremlin has repeatedly rejected temporary truces in Ukraine, such as pauses for holidays and the Olympics. The argument from the Kremlin has been that it would give Ukraine time to regroup and its Western allies time to ship additional weapons and ammunition.
But now Russian forces have been caught red-handed using the six-day humanitarian pause for civilians trapped in an occupied town on the left bank of the Dnipro, mediated by US First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV.
Nearly 800 residents left Oleshky before the truce ran out.
Ukraine’s General Staff said on November 2 that Russian forces used the ceasefire to rotate units, haul in ammunition and dig new positions, while British broadcaster Sky News published aerial footage of armored vehicles and infantry entering the town during the same window.
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The ceasefire ran from October 27 to 22:59 Ukrainian time on November 1, when it was allowed to expire without extension. A Ukrainian official told Al Jazeera that Russia had rejected a Kyiv proposal to prolong it.
General Staff logs rotations and ammunition
In its statement, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces had held fire while the Russian side exploited the quiet. “The enemy, meanwhile, used the humanitarian pause to reinforce its positions.
During the ceasefire, we recorded the rotation of Russian units, the fortification of positions, the expansion of anti-drone defenses along roads, and increased logistical activity, including the delivery of ammunition,” the command said, in a statement carried by Ukrinform.
On the Ukrainian side, Kyiv’s own forces observed the truce and ran the civilian evacuation. On the final day, 167 people were taken out, including 22 children and 21 residents with limited mobility, according to figures published by United24 Media.
Sky News films armor in daylight
The visual record came from Sky News, which obtained drone footage filmed from the positions of Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade and held it back until evacuees had crossed into Ukrainian-controlled territory. The video shows heavy armored vehicles rolling through Oleshky’s streets, troops carrying rucksacks into the basements of damaged buildings, and bodies being loaded from a hospital morgue into double body bags for removal.
Dmytro Pulinets, a commander with the 34th Brigade, told Sky News that daylight movements of this kind had been rare before the pause. He said the Russians now had the opportunity to move openly and had been doing so constantly, day and night, over recent days, previously held back by Ukrainian fire from across the Dnipro.
Mediators and the next step
Melania Trump, who worked with Pope Leo XIV to broker the pause, posted on X after the truce ended that the operation had been “a success, delivering critical aid to the region and enabling the evacuation of nearly 800 people.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov separately offered a positive assessment of how the operation was conducted.
Russia’s chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, had announced the ceasefire on October 23. Ukraine’s chief negotiator Davyd Arakhamia confirmed the humanitarian corridor arrangements shortly after.
With the pause over, Kherson Oblast is bracing for a return to active strikes. Ukrainian commanders say the Russian buildup documented over the past week will now have to be fought back through.
