Kherson braces for return of war as localised Russia-Ukraine truce ends

Moscow and Kyiv continue strikes elsewhere, but no reported violations in Kherson region during the six-day ceasefire.

A man walks with bags past a building previously destroyed in a Russian air attack in the city of Kherson, Ukraine, on October 31, 2026, during a temporary ceasefire in the southern Kherson region [AFP]

The longest multi-day truce between Russia and Ukraine, limited to Ukraine’s eastern Kherson region, has come to an end with no violations reported by either side, but also no sign of an extension.

The truce, which ended on Sunday night, allowed hundreds of besieged residents of the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky to be evacuated in a rare joint operation between Kyiv and Moscow.

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Russian strikes elsewhere in Ukraine on Sunday left hundreds of thousands of households without power, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. In Russia, meanwhile, authorities reported major ⁠damage to an industrial site following Ukrainian drone attacks on the Nizhny Novgorod region.

The six-day localised ceasefire in the front-line Oleshky and the surrounding area was reached after mediation efforts by United States First Lady Melania Trump and with the involvement of Pope Leo XIV. It was set to expire at 10:59pm Ukraine time (20:59 GMT).

On Sunday, Ukraine’s military said it evacuated 167 more people from threatened areas of the southern Kherson region, including 22 children and 21 people with limited mobility requiring special assistance.

“Units of civil-military cooperation of the ‘South’ group of forces, in cooperation with representatives of local authorities, evacuated 167 civilians to safer points in the Kherson region,” Ukraine’s General Staff wrote on Telegram.

An estimated 2,000 civilians were in Oleshky when the temporary truce took hold. They were offered the choice to evacuate to Kyiv-controlled territory of Ukraine or territory occupied by Russia, or to remain in the city with replenished food and medical supplies.

“The ceasefire across Oleshky and the surrounding Kherson region has provided residents with the freedom to move, access to food, clean water, medicine, plus a renewed sense of dignity without the constant threat of attack,” Melania Trump said on social media. “Let Oleshky become the starting point for lasting peace.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, quoted by Russian news agencies, said Moscow had a positive view of how the operation was conducted in Oleshky, as well as of the coordination between the two countries’ human rights commissioners.

A Ukrainian official, however, told the AFP news agency that Russia reportedly refused an offer to extend the ceasefire after Kyiv’s Foreign Ministry proposed it.

Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, Moscow’s forces have occupied most of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as the majority of territory in Ukraine’s southern Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.

Residents urged to remain vigilant

Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin urged residents to be vigilant as the expiry of the ceasefire neared on Sunday.

“I also strongly urge you not to visit the so-called ‘red zones’ – areas and settlements near the Dnipro [River],” Prokudin wrote on Telegram. “The intensity of Russian strikes there remains high, and the threat to life is extremely high.”

Residents in Kherson city, one of the remaining areas of the region still controlled by Ukraine, remained calm, despite knowing the quiet of the localised ceasefire would soon end.

“Don’t be afraid, keep holding on,” Oleksandr Knyha, head of the Mykola Kulish Kherson Regional Academic Music and Drama Theater, told the audience as he opened a concert.

Knyha is from Oleshky and used to commute from there to Kherson for work. He has not given up hope of returning home.

“That’s also what keeps me here,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

Elsewhere, Moscow and Kyiv have continued air strikes, with Zelenskyy saying on Sunday that Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy systems before winter. Attacks on power infrastructure in four Ukrainian regions overnight cut electricity to hundreds of thousands of households, he said.

A Russian attack also killed three people, including a 13-year-old girl, in the Ukrainian region of Vinnytsia, when a drone hit the grounds of a vocational school, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. Four others were wounded.

Russian drone attacks targeting Ukraine’s Kyiv region for a second consecutive day wounded a woman and damaged homes, energy infrastructure and a retail establishment, regional authorities said.

In its daily report on Sunday, Ukraine’s Air Force said that Moscow’s forces attacked Ukraine with 433 drones overnight, of which 371 were destroyed or suppressed.

Meanwhile, more than 100 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the skies of Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, Governor Gleb Nikitin said on Sunday.

The attack sparked a blaze at the Kstovo oil refinery, Russian media outlets reported, sharing images of black plumes of smoke over the horizon.

Zelenskyy said Kyiv also struck a factory for missile components and air defence facilities in Russia’s southern Rostov region.

“We are justly defending ourselves against Russian aggression and doing everything to reduce Russia’s capability to continue it,” Zelenskyy said.

莫斯科和基辅继续在其他地区发动袭击，但在为期六天的停火期间，赫尔松地区没有发生任何违反停火协议的事件。

2026年10月31日，在乌克兰南部赫尔松地区，一名男子提着包走过一栋此前在俄罗斯空袭中被摧毁的建筑物。当时正值赫尔松地区暂时停火期间。[法新社]

俄罗斯和乌克兰之间持续时间最长的多日停火协议已经结束，该协议仅限于乌克兰东部的赫尔松地区，双方均未报告任何违反停火协议的行为，但也没有任何延长停火协议的迹象。

停火于周日晚结束，基辅和莫斯科罕见地联合开展行动，使得数百名被围困在俄罗斯占领的乌克兰城镇奥列什基的居民得以撤离。

名单1/4：从俄罗斯占领的奥列什基撤离的人员经白俄罗斯抵达乌克兰

名单2/4：从俄罗斯占领的奥列什基撤离的乌克兰人与家人团聚

乌克兰加大火力投入，给俄罗斯造成新的伤亡记录（共4条记录，此为第3条）。

列表 4/4：死海豚、水雷：俄乌战争摧毁黑海

乌克兰总统泽连斯基表示，周日俄罗斯对乌克兰其他地区的空袭导致数十万户家庭断电。与此同时，俄罗斯当局报告称，乌克兰无人机袭击下诺夫哥罗德州后，一处工业设施遭到严重破坏。

在美国第一夫人梅拉尼娅·特朗普的斡旋和教皇利奥十四世的参与下，奥列什基前线及其周边地区达成了为期六天的局部停火协议。该协议原定于乌克兰时间晚上10点59分（格林尼治标准时间20点59分）到期。

周日，乌克兰军方表示，他们从南部赫尔松地区的受威胁地区撤离了 167 人，其中包括 22 名儿童和 21 名行动不便、需要特殊援助的人。

乌克兰总参谋部在 Telegram 上写道：“南方部队民事军事合作单位与地方当局代表合作，将 167 名平民疏散到赫尔松地区的安全地点。”

据估计，临时停火生效时，奥列什基约有2000名平民。他们可以选择撤离到基辅控制的乌克兰领土或俄罗斯占领的领土，也可以留在城里，城里会补充食物和医疗用品。

梅拉尼娅·特朗普在社交媒体上表示：“奥列什基及周边赫尔松地区的停火让居民们获得了行动自由，能够获得食物、清洁饮用水和药品，并且重拾了尊严，不再面临持续不断的袭击威胁。愿奥列什基成为持久和平的起点。”

俄罗斯新闻机构援引克里姆林宫发言人德米特里·佩斯科夫的话说，莫斯科对在奥列什基开展的行动以及两国人权专员之间的协调表示积极看法。

然而，一名乌克兰官员告诉法新社，据报道，基辅外交部提出延长停火协议后，俄罗斯拒绝了这一提议。

自俄罗斯于 2022 年 2 月对其邻国发动全面入侵以来，莫斯科的军队已经占领了乌克兰东部顿涅茨克和卢甘斯克的大部分地区，以及乌克兰南部赫尔松和扎波罗热地区的大部分领土。

敦促居民保持警惕

赫尔松省省长奥列克桑德·普罗库金敦促居民们保持警惕，因为停火协议将于周日到期。

普罗库金在Telegram上写道：“我还强烈建议你们不要前往所谓的‘红色区域’——第聂伯河附近的地区和居民点。俄罗斯在那里的空袭强度仍然很高，生命安全受到极大威胁。”

赫尔松市是该地区仍由乌克兰控制的剩余地区之一，当地居民虽然知道局部停火的平静很快就会结束，但仍然保持冷静。

“不要害怕，坚持下去，”赫尔松地区尼古拉·库利什学术音乐戏剧剧院院长奥列克桑德·克尼哈在音乐会开幕式上对观众说道。

克尼哈来自奥列什基，以前每天从那里通勤到赫尔松上班。他仍然没有放弃回家的希望。

“这也是我留在这里的原因，”他告诉美联社。

另一方面，莫斯科和基辅继续进行空袭。泽连斯基周日表示，俄罗斯在冬季来临前继续袭击乌克兰的能源系统。他说，一夜之间，乌克兰四个地区的电力基础设施遭到袭击，导致数十万户家庭断电。

乌克兰国家紧急情况部门称，俄罗斯发动的袭击还造成乌克兰文尼察地区一所职业学校遭到无人机袭击，造成包括一名13岁女孩在内的三人死亡，另有四人受伤。

乌克兰基辅地区连续第二天遭到俄罗斯无人机袭击，造成一名妇女受伤，房屋、能源基础设施和一家零售店遭到破坏，地区当局表示。

乌克兰空军在周日发布的每日报告中称，莫斯科的军队连夜出动 433 架无人机袭击乌克兰，其中 371 架被摧毁或击落。

与此同时，俄罗斯下诺夫哥罗德州州长格列布·尼基京周日表示，超过100架乌克兰无人机在莫斯科以东的俄罗斯下诺夫哥罗德州上空被击落。

俄罗斯媒体报道称，袭击引发了克斯托沃炼油厂的大火，并发布了地平线上冒出滚滚黑烟的图片。

泽连斯基表示，基辅方面还袭击了俄罗斯南部罗斯托夫州的一家导弹部件工厂和防空设施。

泽连斯基说：“我们正在正当防卫俄罗斯的侵略，并将尽一切努力削弱俄罗斯继续侵略的能力。”