Residents of Kherson, a southern Ukrainian city where Russian drones usually crowd the skies, stepped back into something resembling ordinary life during a brief ceasefire that ended Sunday night. The truce, negotiated by First Lady Melania Trump and Pope Leo XIV, covered a corner of southern Ukraine that included the city.
For Olena Soboleva, 21, the pause meant she could finally walk down the street to meet her best friend, Anna Herasimenko, also 21. Over the weekend, the two ventured out under autumn skies free of drones and guided bombs. "No drones, no explosions," Soboleva said. "No one wants to kill you."
They passed families strolling with their children, shoppers stocking up on supplies and couples holding hands, then lined up at a cafe filled with paintings of cats. "The city seems alive," Herasimenko said, "just like it used to be." She had also managed a trip to a salon, showing off fresh burgundy nail polish and saying the streets were full of people again, just as they were in the past.
Russia and Ukraine agreed to the truce, which lasted from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1, in order to help Oleshky, a town across the Dnipro River from Kherson. Russian troops occupied Oleshky in 2022 and mined the land around it, and food and medicine rarely got through. Families of residents there told NPR their loved ones survived on pickles and boiled weeds.
Over the weekend, hundreds of Oleshky residents were evacuated and eventually escorted into northern Ukraine on buses. Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's ombudsman, the country's independent watchdog for human rights, thanked Melania Trump for ensuring the ceasefire happened. Speaking about truces between Ukraine and Russia, he said, "I believe they can be upheld and honored."
Even a short pause in hostilities was a respite for Kherson, which Russian troops occupied for several months in 2022 until local partisans spied for Ukrainian soldiers who then forced the Russians out. Since 2024, Russian troops based across the river have hunted Kherson residents with FPV, or first-person-view, drones strapped with explosives. The highway into the city is shrouded in tunnels of heavy mesh netting, and similar anti-drone nets cover streets and many buildings.
This weekend, cars pulled up beside the Greek-style monument marking the city's gateway. Svitlana Vorobiova, a retired police officer, drove in from the safer city where she now lives to take photos with her children at the monument. "I have a place in Kherson, and my parents are also here," she said, her voice breaking as tears filled her eyes. She said her son had not been there in four years and told her he could not believe he was in his hometown.
Inside the city, Volodymyr Mykolaienko, a former mayor of Kherson, strolled past the crushed remains of a once grand administrative building as locals stopped to shake his hand. Mykolaienko, 66, was arrested by Russian troops in early 2022, when the city was under occupation, and spent years as a prisoner of war in Russia, confined to tiny rooms, starved and tortured, before being freed in a prisoner exchange last year. "I walk around the city a lot these days," he said. "I cannot sit still at home."
The truce also allowed him to visit his father's grave, in a cemetery located in a part of the city usually filled with drones. "I could not hold myself back," he said. "I was able to do exactly what I have long wanted to do, to talk to my father, pray, thank him for my life and to tell him what was happening to our city."
At a busy bus stop, oncology nurse Olena Yehorova smiled as a gray-haired man played folk music on his accordion. "This truce has been such a relief," she said. "The people in our city have been able to breathe. Of course, we still walk around with caution, because you cannot trust the Russians." She could not help looking up at the sky. A few hours later, the truce was over, and she said she expects new attacks to resume at any time.
