The exceptional truce that began at the start of the week in Olechky ended on Sunday evening, Moscow having refused a proposal from Ukraine to extend this ceasefire. On site, the authorities welcome compliance with the agreement but expect an immediate and violent resumption of the war.

Published on: 01/11/2026 - 20:27 Modified on: 02/11/2026 - 07:28

To display this YouTube content, it is necessary to authorize audience measurement and advertising cookies.

An extension in your browser appears to be blocking the loading of the video player. To be able to watch this content, you must disable or uninstall it.

The truce which allowed the evacuation of residents of Olechky, a town occupied by Russia in southern Ukraine, ended on Sunday November 1 at 10:59 p.m. local time (8:59 p.m. GMT), after Moscow's refusal to extend the ceasefire.

This exceptional truce, which began Tuesday morning, allowed the evacuation of residents of this town located on the front line in the Kherson region, with mined access, under the crossfire of Russian and Ukrainian drones, and plagued for months by serious shortages.

A few hours before the end of the truce, Moscow rejected a proposal from Ukraine to extend this ceasefire, according to statements by a senior Ukrainian presidency official to AFP. “The Russians don’t want to,” he said.

It was the longest ceasefire since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022. Neither kyiv nor Moscow reported any violation of the agreement, unlike other partial ceasefires, notably on the occasion of Orthodox Easter.

"During this period, the parties respected their commitments. This made it possible to deliver humanitarian aid to Olechky and help civilians who wanted to leave the city safely," Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Loubinets said on Telegram, adding that he is now working with his Russian counterpart, Yana Lantratova, on new "humanitarian initiatives."

The truce extended beyond Olechky to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid and the departure of evacuees, also providing the city of Kherson, located on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, with a breath of fresh air.

The Ukrainian armed forces also said they were able to evacuate 167 other civilians, including 22 children, from other areas of the region ravaged by fighting.

“Even worse than before”

However, all the people met by AFP in Kherson expect without illusion an immediate resumption of the war as soon as the ceasefire ends on Sunday evening. “It’s going to be hell, even worse than before,” predicts a local military source, who wishes to remain anonymous.

According to this officer, Russian forces, positioned on the other bank of the river, took advantage of the calm of the last few days to amass new troops, transport stocks of ammunition, and collect intelligence on Ukrainian positions using surveillance drones.

The head of the military administration of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, urged residents of the region to "be especially vigilant" and "immediately respond to warnings of Russian attacks" after the ceasefire expires.

See alsoWar in Ukraine: the isolated town of Olechky, in the grip of a humanitarian crisis

Russia and Ukraine also continued their strikes outside the ceasefire zone. Russian strikes on Sunday left three dead, including a 13-year-old girl, in the regions of Vinnytsia, in the center of the country, and Sumy, in the north, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced earlier on Sunday nighttime Russian strikes on the country's energy installations which left "hundreds of thousands of families without electricity". According to the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, power outages caused by these Russian strikes are particularly affecting the Dnipropetrovsk and kyiv regions.

The authorities installed by Moscow in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine, for their part, reported five deaths in Ukrainian strikes between Saturday evening and Sunday. Russian authorities also reported strikes against an industrial site in the Nizhny Novgorod region, east of Moscow. According to Ukrainian media, the Kstovo refinery, one of the largest in the country, was affected.

With AFP

Keywords associated with the article

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.