A truce sought by Melania Trump takes hold in a Russian-occupied southern Ukraine city

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine began observing a localized ceasefire in a devastated southern Ukrainian city Tuesday, before a planned humanitarian mission brokered by U.S. first lady Melania Trump, but Moscow kept up its deadly missile attacks on other cities in the meantime.

The local pause in fighting started at 3 a.m. to allow an aid mission into the Russia-occupied city of Oleshky later this week. The situation in Oleshky is desperate, with food and medical supplies running perilously low for the up to 2,000 people still there, as drones and land mines restrict movement.

Deep mistrust between Russia and Ukraine, as Moscow’s full-scale invasion nears the five-year mark in February, has undermined previous attempts at limited ceasefires, which quickly unraveled or never took hold.

The humanitarian truce was a high-stakes operation for both Moscow and Kyiv, with both sides keen to win U.S. President Donald Trump’s favor.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators as well as the militaries of the two countries confirmed in separate statements that the Oleshky ceasefire had begun.

Melania Trump and Pope Leo worked for a truce in Oleshky

According to her office, Melania Trump led talks with civilian negotiators from Russia and Ukraine after meeting with U.N. officials who briefed the American first lady on the situation in Oleshky.

Up to 2,000 people are stranded in the city, unable to leave because of explosive mines and drone attacks in the area, according to the U.N. The partly occupied Kherson region of Ukraine where Oleshky is located is notorious for the dangers of Russian drone attacks on soldiers and civilians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that “so far there have been no reports of violations.”

Pope Leo XIV spoke earlier this month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging them to allow humanitarian aid into Oleshky and the safe evacuation of civilians, the Vatican said.

Negotiators involved in the aid mission said doctors, medicines, food supplies and water would be taken to Oleshky before evacuation corridors are opened.

The Kremlin said at the time that Putin voiced support for the Vatican’s plea, and an agreement was reached to coordinate efforts in this regard.

Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for the humanitarian crisis.

Russia, as the occupying power, must under international law ensure that civilians under its occupation live safely. Ukraine has repeatedly tried to negotiate a humanitarian corridor for evacuations and aid delivery with Moscow.

The aid mission is planned ahead of a new round of U.S.-brokered talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine expected next month that will seek to lay the groundwork for detailed peace negotiations later.

Lull in Oleshky uneasy, a Ukrainian official tells The AP

The local ceasefire is due to last through Saturday, or longer if needed. Its geographical scope was unclear, though it was centered on Oleshky and other nearby parts of the Kherson region.

Oleshky is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Kyiv, where the Dnipro River separates Russian and Ukrainian forces. Oleshky sits across the Dnipro River from the city of Kherson, the region’s administrative capital. Russian forces seized Kherson in the early stages of the 2022 full-scale invasion, but retreated across the river several months later.

The Ukrainian-held side of the Kherson region was quiet Tuesday. Only Russian reconnaissance drones were in the sky, local authorities said, though they cautioned it was too early to draw any conclusions and that they didn’t trust Russia.

“It’s too early to say. Let’s wait and see, because you can’t trust the enemy, especially the Russians,” Yaroslav Shanko, head of the Kherson city administration, told The Associated Press.

“There have been previously announced ceasefires more than once, and they had no effect on Kherson … and, let’s say, a lull like this is sometimes even frightening.”

Shanko acknowledged the situation was unusual. He typically travels with a portable drone detector that constantly picks up drones overhead, but it had gone silent, though he said he still kept glancing at it, but it showed nothing.

The quiet stands in contrast to daily life in the city, where people are wounded or killed nearly every day, he said.

City services plan to use the pause to carry out utility work that is usually too dangerous because of constant drone activity.

Russian missiles kill at least 3 civilians in Ukraine, officials say

Minutes after 3 a.m., multiple ballistic missile explosions shook Kyiv and air alerts sounded in multiple parts of the country.

Late Monday, the capital also came under attack, when Russian ballistic missiles damaged the grounds of a university in Kyiv, killing one person and leaving 10 injured, city officials said. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, authorities said attacks late Monday killed two people and injured four.

“It is important that the world sees that Russia is showing nothing but a desire to kill and continue waging war,” Zelenskyy wrote in an online post shortly afterward.

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Susie Blann and Derek Gatopoulos contributed to this report from Kyiv.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine