Kherson Ceasefire Ends as Ukraine Braces for Return of Fighting

The Kherson ceasefire expired on Sunday night with no extension announced, ending the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began nearly five years ago. Civilians in the southern Kherson region are now bracing for a return to fighting around the front-line city of Oleshky, after a rare humanitarian pause that allowed besieged residents to leave.

FAKTA

• What ended: A localised Kherson ceasefire that began early on Tuesday, 27 October 2026, and was due to end at 22:59 Ukrainian time on Sunday, 1 November.
• Who brokered it: The White House said US First Lady Melania Trump helped broker the truce; the BBC also credits Pope Leo with helping to arrange it.
• Why it mattered: It was the most significant truce between Kyiv and Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
• Oleshky: About 2,000 civilians were in the Russian-occupied city when the truce took hold; residents could evacuate or stay with replenished food and medical supplies.
• No extension: Neither side announced an extension before the deadline, leaving no humanitarian corridor in place.
• Fighting elsewhere: Overnight strikes hit energy infrastructure in four Ukrainian regions, leaving hundreds of thousands of families without power.

Kherson ceasefire ends with no extension announced

The limited truce covered Oleshky and the surrounding Kherson region. It was originally confined to Oleshky, a city on the left bank of the Dnipro River that has been occupied by Russia since the first days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and was later expanded across the wider region.

The White House said the pause allowed besieged residents of Oleshky to be evacuated in a rare joint operation that ended on Saturday. In a social media post, Melania Trump said the ceasefire had given residents “the freedom to move, access to food, clean water, medicine, plus a renewed sense of dignity without the constant threat of attack” and added: “Let Oleshky become the starting point for lasting peace.”

An estimated 2,000 civilians were in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice of evacuating to territory controlled by Ukraine or Russia, or remaining in the city with replenished food and medical supplies. For the safety of those who stayed, exact numbers were not released after the evacuation.

The evacuation route itself showed how cut off the city had become. Evacuees could not cross directly to Ukrainian positions only a few kilometres away; instead they travelled through Russian-controlled territory to southern Russia, flew to Belarus, and were then driven across Ukraine’s northern border. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the evacuees ranged in age from a one-year-old baby to a 94-year-old resident.

Oleshky evacuation ends, with no corridor left

With the deadline passed and no extension announced, civilians who remained in Oleshky no longer have a humanitarian corridor out of the city. At the Ukrainian border on Saturday, family members waited for a glimpse of their loved ones, while residents of nearby villages lined the highway waving flags and flashlights to greet the humanitarian convoy.

A destroyed building in Kherson. (File photo)

Residents of the regional capital, Kherson, remained calm on Sunday despite knowing that the quiet of the localised ceasefire would soon end, according to the Associated Press. Local officials warned that Russian forces have brought in more weapons and personnel, and some residents expect shelling to intensify.

Strikes continued elsewhere as the truce held

While the localised ceasefire held on the front line, fighting continued elsewhere throughout the truce. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy systems ahead of winter.

Overnight strikes hit energy infrastructure in four regions — Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Khmelnytskyi — targeting substations, transformers and power lines that supply homes. Zelenskyy said hundreds of thousands of families were left without power, adding: “The intensity of the strikes is extremely high, and the Russians are trying to take maximum advantage of the shortage of ballistic missile interceptors.”

Repair work continued through Sunday. Most customers in the Dnipropetrovsk region had their connections restored by early evening, but more than 60,000 were still without power, according to the regional governor. In Kyiv, emergency power cuts have left electricity off for most of the day, with water supplies also disrupted.

In the Vinnytsia region, a Russian drone attack killed three people, including a 13-year-old girl, when a drone hit the grounds of a vocational school, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. Four others were wounded, including two five-year-old girls and a 16-year-old boy. Russian drone attacks also continued to target the Kyiv region for a second consecutive day, wounding a woman and damaging homes, energy infrastructure and a retail establishment, regional authorities said.

Ukraine’s air force said Moscow’s forces attacked with 433 drones overnight, of which 371 were destroyed or suppressed. Zelenskyy said Kyiv had also struck a factory used to make missile components and air defence facilities inside Russia’s southern Rostov region, saying Ukraine was “justly defending ourselves against Russian aggression and doing everything to reduce Russia’s capability to continue it.”

Kherson’s final day of quiet

On the last day of the ceasefire, Kherson’s theatre staged a concert built around a “musical map of Ukraine”, with songs from Crimea to the Carpathian mountains. Oleksandr Knyha, head of the Mykola Kulish Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater, opened the concert by telling the audience: “Don’t be afraid, keep holding on.”

The company performs every Saturday and Sunday and plans to perform next weekend as usual. It now performs in a basement and is equipping an additional bomb shelter. About 100 of the theatre’s 120 staff members work in Kherson, and none has evacuated.

“Whatever happens, the show is not canceled,” Knyha said. “This is also our job — to unite people and give them hope.”

Costume maker Alla Vasylenko, 58, said she has no plans to leave. “I have 10 dogs, so I can’t leave,” she said. “They urge us to leave, but you need somewhere to go and the means to get there.” The trip alone would cost 30,000 to 50,000 hryvnias (650 to 1,080 dollars), she said, adding: “Until we liberate the left bank, we have no certainty this will end.”

For more coverage from the region, see the Europe section on Watan News.