Kherson’s Brief Ceasefire Lets Two Friends Enjoy a Day Without Drones
A five‑day truce in southern Ukraine let residents of Kherson step outside, shop and sip coffee before the pause ended on Sunday night.
What a surprise! For a few days the sky over Kherson was free of the usual Russian drones and guided bombs.
First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV negotiated a local truce that began on Oct. 27 and ended Sunday night, Nov. 1.
During that window, 21‑year‑old Olena Soboleva and her best friend Anna Herasimenko finally walked the streets together.
“No drones, no explosions,” Soboleva said, noting how rare it was to feel safe enough to step outside.
The pair joined families with children, shoppers loading supplies and couples holding hands, all moving through a city that felt “alive,” according to Herasimenko.
They stopped at a café whose walls are covered with cat paintings, where they enjoyed coffee together.
Herasimenko also visited a salon, showing off fresh burgundy nail polish, and remarked that the streets were “full of people, just as they were in the past.”
Meanwhile, the ceasefire helped Oleshky, a town across the Dnipro River that has been under Russian occupation since 2022.
Russian forces had mined the area, making food and medicine scarce; families there survived on pickles and boiled weeds.
During the weekend, hundreds of Oleshky residents were evacuated and escorted by bus into northern Ukraine.
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s ombudsman, thanked Melania Trump for making the pause possible.
When the truce ended Sunday night, the usual sounds of conflict returned to Kherson.
Residents were seen boarding public buses under drone nets as the brief calm faded.
For those few days, Kherson experienced a momentary return to ordinary life.
