Melania Trump urges lasting Ukraine truce at White House meeting

First Lady Melania Trump urged Russia and Ukraine to turn a six-day ceasefire in southern Ukraine into a more lasting halt to the fighting as she hosted officials from both countries at the White House on Thursday.

“Together, we can create something more enduring than a temporary ceasefire,” Trump said, describing the humanitarian truce around the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky as “a spark in a world of darkness”.

The ceasefire allowed aid deliveries and the evacuation of nearly 800 people from Oleshky and surrounding areas of the Kherson region, according to Al Jazeera. An estimated 2,000 civilians had been left in the city. The truce expired on Sunday without an extension, while Russian attacks continued elsewhere in Ukraine.

“The lives of innocent people must transcend the division of war. I hope Oleshky inspires greater peace,” Trump said. She described residents walking familiar streets without fear of explosions for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The meeting brought together Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova, Ukrainian lawmaker Davyd Arakhamia and Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev. It took place outside the US-brokered peace talks that, the BBC reported, have continued without success since last year. Further talks are expected in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, according to Al Jazeera.

Trump said written agreements signed by both countries established her role as an “exclusive intermediary”. She said she had reviewed demining plans, aerial images, roads and evacuation routes, and discussed hospital access, vehicles and medical resources. Moscow and Kyiv credited her with helping secure the ceasefire, though neither has detailed the extent of her involvement. Al Jazeera reported that Pope Leo XIV had also pressed both sides to permit aid and evacuations, and that accounts of who brokered the truce diverged.

A Kherson local-government source told the BBC that work on the Oleshky evacuation had been underway for almost a year. The source said others became involved after much of the groundwork had been laid, while acknowledging that it was difficult to determine who played which role.

Dmitriev thanked Trump for “saving and touching so many lives” and gave her a framed drawing by an 11-year-old evacuee. Arakhamia called the ceasefire the “biggest de-escalation since 2022” but said negotiations to end the war remained complex. Ukrainian representatives presented Trump with the Order of Princess Olga, first class, awarded by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Al Jazeera reported. She gave Dmitriev and Arakhamia letters for Presidents Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.

After the meeting, Zelenskyy said the ceasefire showed that “when Putin wants the fighting to stop, it stops.” The day after the truce expired, a Russian strike on an aid distribution site in the Zaporizhzhia region killed more than 40 people, according to the BBC. Al Jazeera reported that Zelenskyy put the toll at at least 40.