Melania Trump calls for lasting Ukraine ceasefire at White House meeting

The six-day ceasefire around Oleshky, in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, ran from 27 October to 1 November. It gave residents of the Russian-occupied town an opportunity to evacuate, but did not cover the whole of Ukraine.

“Together, we can create something more enduring than a temporary ceasefire,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday.

Ukraine was represented by MP Davyd Arakhamia and human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets. Russia sent Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev and human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova.

Trump said written agreements signed by Russia and Ukraine had set out her role as an exclusive intermediary. Both Moscow and Kyiv credited her with helping broker the Oleshky ceasefire, the BBC reported.

A person working in Kherson’s local government told the BBC that work on the evacuation had been under way for almost a year and that other people became involved later. The source did not identify those individuals.

At the meeting, Trump gave Dmitriev and Arakhamia personal letters to deliver to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, respectively. She did not disclose their contents.

Arakhamia asked the first lady to continue working on new missions and further de-escalation. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, and the war continues beyond Oleshky.