Fighting returns to Kherson region after longest Ukraine war ceasefire

ByLaura Gozzi and Vitaly Shevchenko, Chief analyst, BBC Monitoring.

Key points

• An unusual show of cooperation came from Russia's human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets.
• And although last week the guns fell silent in Kherson region, elsewhere in Ukraine Russia's air strikes continued, killing scores of civilians and destroying crucial infrastructure.
• There were emotional scenes when hundreds of Oleshky residents arrived in northern Ukraine on Saturday.
• Fighting has resumed in Ukraine's Kherson after a six-day truce brought quiet to the front-line region for the first time in years.
• On Monday morning, local authorities confirmed that strikes had resumed, saying Moscow had hit a medical facility in Kherson city centre.

In practice, the ceasefire – the longest since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 – allowed hundreds of individuals trapped in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky and its surroundings to be evacuated.

On Monday morning, local authorities confirmed that strikes had resumed, saying Moscow had hit a medical facility in Kherson city centre. They additionally stated a 62-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man were injured when a Russian drone attacked the car they were travelling in.

Ukraine additionally accused Russian forces of using the humanitarian ceasefire to strengthen their military positions, rotate units and deliver ammunition.

"The enemy used the humanitarian pause to set up their positions, " remarked Ukraine's General Staff, adding they had recorded rotation of Russian units, expansion of anti-drone equipment on the roads, and delivery of ammunition.

In practice, the Kremlin appeared to corroborate this when spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked it was "reasonable to assume that the Ukrainian army also used this period for the necessary regrouping". "It is a completely standard practice in such situations, " he continued.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire had been brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump. Though no details of her involvement were shared, both Kyiv and Moscow thanked her repeatedly.

Meanwhile, an unusual show of cooperation came from Russia's human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets. The pair oversaw the ceasefire, travelled into Oleshky and were filmed speaking to residents together. They publicly thanked each other for their work, often highlighting that no violations of the ceasefire had been observed.

Both Lantratova and Lubinets pressed the initiative to be repeated elsewhere, and Ukraine repeatedly stated it would be prepared to observe similar ceasefires on a national level too.

But plenty of have questioned whether this will lead to more cooperation and further truces.

In fact, the Kremlin swiftly dismissed the idea even as the ceasefire was under way, calling Oleshky "an isolated case" which would not affect the "settlement process" – a euphemism for the stalled peace discussions. "There are no similar plans or initiatives, " Peskov reiterated on Monday.

Meanwhile, the decision to observe an unusually broad and comparatively lengthy ceasefire in and around Oleshky was therefore a notable exception.

Notably, the ceasefire's observance appears, at least in part, to have been linked to Melania Trump's documented involvement. By violating the truce, Moscow would have risked undermining its own efforts to cultivate the crucial relationship with her husband, US President Donald Trump.

Some commentators have argued that Trump himself would be interested in presenting the Oleshky ceasefire as a foreign policy achievement scored days before the US midterm elections on Tuesday.

"I totally get why our official representatives need to 'play along' with the US first lady on Oleshky, " remarked Artyom Sheynin, a prominent figure on Russian state TV.

"I understand why it's so important to create a 'success story' ahead of the elections for the US president, whose wife 'achieved a ceasefire' in Oleshky."

Kyiv, too, had its reasons to be fully compliant. Although relations with the US and its president are often fraught, Ukraine continues to rely heavily on US intelligence and US-made Patriot air defence missiles to counter Russian aerial attacks. Ahead of another tough winter of war, continued American backing is essential to protect Ukrainian skies from Russia's assaults.

But though the ceasefire may have been born out of political calculation rather than purely humanitarian compassion, it additionally resulted in hundreds of civilians escaping.

There were emotional scenes when hundreds of Oleshky residents arrived in northern Ukraine on Saturday. Plenty of were met by tearful relatives they had not seen in years. To the journalists waiting, the evacuees informed of years of hunger and hardship in a destroyed town.

In practice, the hundreds of residents who decided to stay behind will receive monthly humanitarian aid deliveries, Lantratova remarked, adding that decision too was the result of Melania Trump's mediation.

Yet the troop rotations and resupply efforts show that neither side is expecting Oleshky to be a blueprint for lasting respite going forward.

As Kherson came under fire again, Ukrainian drones hit a number of energy facilities throughout four Russian regions. In Samara, residents documented hearing explosions and seeing black plumes of smoke rising into the sky as an oil refinery was hit for the fifth time in a month.

If the truce brought a rare moment of relief to Oleshky, it has done little to alter the wider trajectory of a war that grinds on for now.

Taken together, the developments around fighting returns to Kherson region after longest Ukraine war ceasefire point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.