Zelensky gives Melania Trump Ukraine's highest award after Oleshky ceasefire

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has given the country's highest award for women to the US First Lady, Melania Trump.

Key points

• According to Ukraine, almost 20, 000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus since Russia introduced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• On Thursday Melania Trump will additionally deliver remarks on the ceasefire in Oleshky at 11: 00 (16: 00 GMT), the White House website stated.
• Russian, Ukrainian and American representatives are additionally going to meet in Abu Dhabi next week in the first trilateral gathering since February.
• According to The White House, melania Trump had "independently initiated engagement between the two warring nations and successfully secured a ceasefire".
• Though neither elaborated on the nature or extent of her involvement, both the Russian and Ukrainian sides repeatedly thanked Melania Trump for brokering the ceasefire.

In practice, the Order of Princess Olga, 1st Class, was awarded to Melania Trump for her "significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine", according to the presidential decree.

It comes after the end of ceasefire in Ukraine's southern region of Kherson. It allowed for the evacuation of a number of hundred residents from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations – created up of ombudsmen who were involved in the evacuation mission as well as senior office-holders – are due to meet at the White House on Thursday on Melania Trump's invitation.

"This achievement marks an unprecedented diplomatic initiative by an American First Lady." it continued.

As well as Ukrainian MP Davyd Arakhamia and Russian senior official Kirill Dmitriev, the delegations travelling to the White House on Thursday will include Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova.

Lubinets and Lantratova travelled together into Oleshky last week, in an unusual show of cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian authorities.

Arakhamia, a Ukrainian MP who heads Zelensky's party in parliament, has previously been part of the Ukrainian negotiating team during peace discussions with Russia.

He was responsible for informal contact between the White House and Moscow during the ceasefire, according to diplomatic sources quoted by Ukrainian media, and has confirmed he will take part in Thursday's discussions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked the Russian delegation will be produced up of Lantratova and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian businessman close to the Kremlin who has frequently taken part in US-brokered ceasefire discussions.

Although both Dmitriev and Arakhamia are veteran participants in high-level peace negotiations, meetings involving such senior representatives are rarely convened through an initiative led by a US First Lady.

No details of what the White House event will entail have been shared. "There are important meetings ahead, " remarked Lubinets in a social media post while announcing he was on his way to the US.

As reasons for giving her the Princess Olga award, zelensky's decree additionally cited Melania Trump's wider humanitarian work, including her efforts concerning Ukrainian children affected by the war.

Melania Trump has largely remained discreet on foreign policy matters, but in 2025 she remarked an "open channel of communication" had been established with Russian President Vladimir Putin, allowing for Ukrainian children displaced in the war to be reunited with families.

Earlier this year the UN remarked the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia constitutes a crime against humanity and a war crime.

Russian, Ukrainian and American representatives are additionally going to meet in Abu Dhabi next week in the first trilateral gathering since February. The discussions will be focused on postwar security agreements and de-escalation, US envoy Steve Witkoff stated on Monday.

For now, zelensky gives Melania Trump Ukraine' s highest award after Oleshky ceasefire remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.