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EXCLUSIVE: Moscow and kyiv remain locked in a bitter, years-long war, but in one Ukrainian town the fighting has calmed – and soon the aging population of Russian-occupied Olechky will be offered humanitarian aid and a way out.
Behind the localized ceasefire lies an unlikely mediator: first lady Melania Trump. And his diplomatic efforts in the war-torn region are not over, Fox News Digital has learned.
Trump spent weeks moderating Russian and Ukrainian officials to reach an agreement on the devastated city in Ukraine’s Kherson region, ultimately winning the trust of both governments to serve as an “exclusive broker,” according to a senior adviser to the first lady.
The agreement brought officials from the two countries together in Belarus last week to sign a detailed humanitarian operation aimed at delivering food, clean water, medicine and doctors to Oleshky, Ukraine, and ensuring safe passage for residents who wish to leave.
First lady Melania Trump. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital obtained the signature pages of the agreement, signed on October 23 by Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova and her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets. The documents also outline plans for continued humanitarian operations in the region, coordinated with the first lady.
For the Slovenian-born first lady, the war in her native Europe was not entirely unfamiliar territory: she had already negotiated exchanges of Ukrainian and Russian children. The negotiation of an agreement to end the fighting, however, marked a significant expansion of this role.
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Just across the Dnipro River from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, Oleshky was once home to around 24,000 people. Russia seized the city at the start of its invasion in 2022, and years of occupation and fighting have reduced its population to around 2,000 residents, many of them elderly.
The city is now squarely on the front line.
Russian forces use Oleshky as a base for attacks across the river into Kherson, while Ukrainian forces target Russian positions in and around the town. Roads were mined, food and medicine became scarce, and basic services largely collapsed.
“It’s hell there,” Yuri Sobolevsky, deputy chairman of the Kherson regional council, told the New York Times. “People need to be evacuated from there, 1,000%. They are living 24/7, at risk of death.”
For Ukraine, the humanitarian mission represents a difficult compromise. The civilians stuck in Oleshky are Ukrainians in desperate need of food, medicine and a safe exit route. But the city remains under Russian occupation and is on an active front line, meaning stopping the attacks long enough to reach them also means temporarily easing military pressure on Russian forces operating in the region.
A composite image shows Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as peace talks continue. (Valéry Sharifulin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images; Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Getting Russia and Ukraine to stop shooting at each other has proven extremely difficult — not only for the first lady, but also for her husband and his administration, which spent much of President Donald Trump’s second term trying to end the war.
But in Olechky, both sides found a narrow point of agreement.
Oleshky first appeared on Trump’s radar during the week of the United Nations General Assembly in September, when the city’s worsening humanitarian crisis was discussed at a Fostering Futures Together event she hosted.
By that time, the first lady had already worked with both governments to reunite 34 Ukrainian and Russian children with their families in six separate efforts, according to her exclusive senior adviser Marc Beckman, building relationships that she was able to leverage when she turned her attention to Oleshky.
“The first lady’s relationships with Russia and Ukraine have been, over time, substantial,” Beckman told Fox News Digital. “There’s a lot of confidence and there’s been a lot of success.”
His team first contacted Ukraine and asked if kyiv would allow Trump to serve as its “exclusive intermediary” with Russia. Ukraine agreed in an official letter, Beckman said. Trump’s team then approached Moscow, and Putin responded with a letter granting him the same role on behalf of Russia.
From there, Trump began negotiating with the highest levels of government in Russia and Ukraine, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy involved in the talks, Beckman said.
The United States’ share of the negotiating efforts has been unusually modest. When asked to what extent the traditional White House national security apparatus was involved, Beckman said Trump managed the effort. “She’s just the first lady,” Beckman said.
“The devil is in the details,” Beckman said of the negotiations. “There were times when things got complicated.”
What began as an effort to deliver food, water and medicine to a city on the brink of collapse quickly became an extraordinarily detailed negotiation over how to temporarily halt fighting between two armies.
Oleshky’s ceasefire signature page. (Provided to Fox News Digital)
Signature page of the Oleshky ceasefire agreement. (Provided to Fox News Digital)
Oleshky’s ceasefire signature page. (Provided to Fox News Digital)
The deal remains narrowly focused on humanitarian operations in and around Oleshky and does not end fighting elsewhere in Ukraine, where Russian and Ukrainian forces continue to fight along a sprawling front.
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Trump and Beckman worked on maps, routes and aerial imagery with both sides, Beckman said. They negotiated what military equipment could enter the area, how civilians would be evacuated, and even provided refrigerated trucks to collect bodies that might be found along the way.
“We know all the military equipment that will be brought in,” Beckman said. “We even went so far as to organize refrigerated trucks for the bodies that will be found there.”
“It’s going to be a very bad scene,” he added. “That’s the level of detail that the first lady was involved in.”
Negotiations ultimately resulted in a plan drawn up not just by weeks and days, Beckman said, but by hours.
Russian and Ukrainian officials met again in Belarus on Friday at 4 a.m. New York time for what was supposed to be a 5 a.m. signing. But negotiations continued for nearly three more hours, with Trump participating via video, before both sides finally agreed to terms and signed at 7:40 a.m.
In this undated image from video provided by Ukraine’s 34th Separate Marine Brigade “Borysfen” on September 22, 2026, smoke rises from a residential area in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region. (34th Ukrainian Separate Marine Brigade “Borysfen” via AP)
The ceasefire was initially scheduled to begin on October 29, but both sides delayed the start by two days, with the guns falling silent at 4 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday. Its geographic reach was also extended beyond Olechky to provide safe passage for humanitarian convoys through the surrounding Kherson region.
“It was almost like the momentum was building,” Beckman said.
Russian General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff, confirmed that Russian forces would cease fire along the Kherson axis and facilitate the safe movement of humanitarian convoys to Oleshky.
The humanitarian mission itself will be led by civilians from both countries, separating Russian and Ukrainian troops while aid enters the city and residents are evacuated.
“If the Ukrainian and Russian military ran through Oleshky, they would kill each other,” Beckman said.
A man holds a sign reading “Mass starvation in occupied Oleshky. Americans! Make Russia agree to a humanitarian corridor,” as he protests outside Kyiv City Hall, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, September 20, 2026. (AFP via Getty Images)
Four American journalists from Newsmax will also accompany the mission to interview residents and document where they choose to go, providing an account of their decisions as civilians are evacuated from Russian-controlled territory.
The humanitarian mission is expected to last about a week and is expected to end in early November. If more time was needed, Beckman said the two sides could negotiate an extension with the first lady participating in talks again.
The deal also envisions a role for Trump beyond the immediate Oleshky operation.
Under the terms signed by the two sides, Russia and Ukraine are expected to establish regular humanitarian aid deliveries and repatriation efforts to communities in the Kherson region following the Oleshky mission, with assistance and coordination from Trump.
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These efforts would take place as needed, but at least once a month, according to the agreement.
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