Russia- Ukriane War: Six Days of Quiet In Kherson Are Over, And Much of Ukraine Spent The Weekend In The Dark.

A rare humanitarian ceasefire around the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky and the wider Kherson region expired on Sunday night, 1 November, at 22:59 Ukrainian time. It began on Tuesday, 27 October, after mediation by US First Lady Melania Trump with the involvement of Pope Leo XIV. It became the longest truce of the war, and neither side reported violations in the area.

The pause allowed hundreds of trapped Oleshky residents to leave in a joint operation between Kyiv and Moscow. On the final day alone, Ukraine's military evacuated 167 more people from southern Kherson, including 22 children. Ukraine's human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said the oldest evacuee was 94 and the youngest was one. A Ukrainian official said Russia turned down Kyiv's proposal to extend the truce.

Away from Kherson, the fighting never stopped. President Zelenskyy said overnight Russian strikes hit energy infrastructure in four regions, leaving hundreds of thousands of households without electricity. Some homes were reconnected on Sunday, but more than 60,000 customers in Dnipropetrovsk were still without power by evening. Emergency power cuts were applied across the country, including in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said the intensity of Russian attacks over the past week had been extremely high and accused Moscow of exploiting Ukraine's shortage of ballistic missile interceptors. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said a drone strike in the Vinnytsia region killed at least two people, including a 13-year-old girl.

Ukraine kept up its own long-range attacks. Russian authorities reported major damage to an industrial site in the Nizhny Novgorod region after a drone attack, and Russian media reported a fire at the Kstovo oil refinery. Zelenskyy said Ukraine also hit a missile fuel producer in Russia's Rostov region.

Kherson governor Oleksandr Prokudin urged residents to stay alert and keep away from areas near the Dnipro River.

Should the Oleshky truce become a model for wider ceasefires, or was it always going to be a one-off? 

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