Russian human rights commissioner says far fewer than 750 people were evacuated from Oleshky, contradicting Melania Trump’s claim
Russia’s human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova, said she has no data on how many people left the city of Oleshky in the Kherson region. She made the comment at a news conference on the results of the humanitarian mission.
U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, whom the White House credits with mediating the deal, previously said that 750 people had been evacuated from the city.
Lantratova confirmed that 750 local residents did have the opportunity to leave Oleshky, the number of seats the evacuation buses were designed to hold. But, she said, “a lot of the buses later returned empty.”
“Of course, far fewer than 750 people left. Moreover, I’ll tell you honestly, we simply didn’t have the time or the ability to count people, we didn’t count them by head,” the Russian ombudsman said.
She added that people who had not signed up on the lists came to the collection point, and that the evacuation buses picked up residents of other settlements along the way.
Ukraine’s ombudsman and mission coordinator Dmytro Lubinets said the two sides had agreed not to disclose how many Oleshky residents left for Ukraine and how many for Russia:
What we did in Oleshky, in my view, is a potential mechanism that we can apply to other towns. […] That’s why neither I nor the Russian side will officially name any figures. I really don’t want this to turn into a competition over “who left for whom more.” That doesn’t serve objectivity.
Oleshky is a front-line town in the part of Ukraine’s Kherson region occupied by Russian forces. In recent months, the humanitarian situation in the town has come close to catastrophe.
Russia and Ukraine carried out a joint humanitarian mission in Oleshky. With U.S. mediation, the two sides halted hostilities in the area around the town from October 27 to November 1, the longest truce since 2022.
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