kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – The truce which allowed the evacuation of residents of Olechky, a town occupied by Russia in southern Ukraine, ended on Sunday evening, an exceptional but circumscribed respite while kyiv and Moscow also continued their strikes.

Published on: 01/11/2026 - 2:41 p.m. Modified on: 01/11/2026 - 11:10 p.m.

This truce, which began Tuesday morning and ended Sunday at 8:59 p.m. GMT, 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.

"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.

He added that he was now working with his Russian counterpart, Iana Lantratova, on new “humanitarian initiatives”. She also assured that both parties had respected the truce until the end.

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

Russia refused 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.

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.

“We must take advantage of this to move forward (...) we are preparing the rose bushes so that they can survive this winter,” Volodymyr Omelchenko, a city gardener, told AFP.

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

Pope Leo

- “The night will be hot” -

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.

An hour before the end of the truce, the Russian Defense Ministry wrote on Telegram: "We are not sparing the ammunition, nor the enemy. The night will be hot, we are at work."

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 (center) and Sumy (north), according to Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced earlier Sunday nighttime Russian strikes on the country's energy facilities that 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 official application used by Ukrainians to be informed of threats of Russian air strikes was also "probably the victim of hostile interference", the Ukrainian air force said on Sunday evening.

Ukraine, for its part, continues to target Russia and the occupied territories, particularly oil infrastructure. kyiv describes these strikes as responses to those of Moscow on its energy network, and is also trying to dry up an important financial resource for Russia.

Authorities installed by Moscow in the occupied territories of eastern Ukraine 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 was hit, one of the largest in the country.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that kyiv stop its strikes on Russian refineries, saying they are responsible for the increase in fuel prices. Experts, on the other hand, attribute this situation to the war in the Middle East triggered by the United States and Israel.

Diplomatic efforts mediated by Washington to put an end to the Russian invasion in Ukraine are currently at a standstill. However, a trilateral meeting between the United States, Russia and Ukraine must take place in November.

© 2026 AFP

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