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The White House has said Melania Trump has successfully secured a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine localised to a blockaded city near the front line.
Simon Marks joins Shelagh Fogarty to report the news and share his instant reaction, as well as insight as to how this inserts itself into the rest of the busy week of news regarding the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Both countries have agreed to temporarily stop all military action in Russian-occupied Oleshky to allow for humanitarian aid to enter and get ready for a civilian evacuation through a safe passageway, the White House added.
The ceasefire will begin on October 29.
Some 2,000 people are trapped in Oleshky without basic essentials or a way out. Before the conflict, roughly 24,000 people lived there.
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0:00
Simon, from your reading of this, is this more than sort of puffing up Melania
0:09
Yeah, I think it is. Look, I mean, we know that Melania Trump has engaged in communications
0:15
with President Vladimir Putin directly in the past and also with the Ukrainian leadership
0:22
She's reached out at times to Ukraine's first lady and also to President Volodymyr Zelensky
0:26
himself. And as you were saying, Sheila, she has already successfully overseen the return of 34
0:34
children that were taken from Ukraine by Russia and then, you know, fostered by Russian families
0:45
That is an issue that is of enormous importance to Melania Trump. It is also the issue that is
0:52
associated with the war crimes charges that have been laid against Vladimir Putin at the
0:58
International Court of Justice, at the International Criminal Court. And so Melania Trump has previous
1:05
contacts that she says she leveraged after first learning in detail about the plight of the people
1:12
in the town of Aleshky in southern Ukraine during the recent UN General Assembly. Remember
1:19
she accompanied her husband to UN headquarters in New York. And in this statement that she has put out
1:25
she says that the circumstances in Ilyashki came to her attention while she was at the United Nations General Assembly
1:34
My representative and I immediately leveraged the communication channel we established with Russia and Ukraine
1:41
through the reunifications of those 34 children who have already been returned to their families in Ukraine
1:49
She says a localised ceasefire is going to begin around Oleski only next Thursday
1:56
So that's still six days away. At that point, there is going to be the creation of some sort of a designated safe passageway
2:06
that will allow for humanitarian aid to enter and for civilians to evacuate the city
2:13
She says in this statement, the situation in Oleski is dire. It's a frontline war city on the brink of disaster
2:21
Oleschke remaining population is comprised primarily of elderly residents who urgently need medical attention medicine food and clean water She says it was absolutely clear that without my intervention
2:35
the possibility to bring humanitarian aid into the city and to evacuate the elderly would be impossible
2:43
I do think it's just worth making the point that the Ukrainians airlifted
2:47
several tons of humanitarian aid into Oleschke just three or four days ago
2:52
And that was the latest in a series of multiple airlifts of humanitarian aid that they had sent into Oleski
3:00
But clearly, the evacuation of citizens was not on the table. And according to this statement by Melania, Trump is now on the table
3:10
She says non-military civilian leaders from both countries will work together to assess the level of assistance that civilians now require
3:18
And I mentioned earlier that I'd read a couple of reports previously about Oleschke and about other cities on the eastern flank that had been very badly affected by this war
3:28
And what particularly the elderly who stayed behind in many cases were actually facing
3:33
And my God, it's just absolutely attritional, particularly as the weather gets colder, but just utterly attritional
3:39
No medical services to speak on, speak of. People reduced to eating grass, which is just so redolent of previous horrors
3:48
people going out for food in the neighbouring town, missing, coming back not quite in time for the curfew
3:56
and being shot dead by drones. I mean, just unimaginable, really, unimaginable
4:03
And look, there is a limited window to alleviate this kind of suffering
4:07
because, as you say, the weather is closing in and the long Ukrainian winter is going to take hold very soon
4:13
And clearly there are enormous questions about Ukraine more broadly this winter at a time when American support for President Volodymyr Zelensky has not entirely been withdrawn, but very, very significantly reduced
4:28
And so the idea that Melania Trump is making these moves in association with representatives from both the Russian and Ukrainian governments comes at a pivotal moment with the winter season about to get underway in a few weeks time
4:44
It would potentially be too late to mount any kind of effective evacuation effort from Oleschke
4:51
But let's see where this ceasefire goes. We seen so many suggestions of ceasefires in Ukraine even localized ones that have come and have gone without any major degree of successful implementation So we now got six days to wait until this localised ceasefire
5:09
comes into force. She certainly, in this statement, is expressing a degree of confidence
5:15
that there are arrangements that can be made to make sure that the people in that town end up where they want to end up
5:25
She even says in this statement that she has secured an impartial American media organization
5:33
Let's see what she means by impartial American media organization to accompany and document Russian and Ukrainian teams on the ground throughout the process
5:43
This will play a significant role in ensuring that the wishes of each family are faithfully respected
5:51
And I think there's an echo in that of the work that she's done to succeed in getting 34 Ukrainian children out of Russian hands and back into the arms of their families on the Ukrainian side of the border
6:06
And I would applaud her for that. Absolutely. Whatever role she played in that
6:10
But it's fair to say that that problem is not resolved either in full. I mean, there are many
6:15
No, it's a drop in the bucket. There are thousands. Yeah, thousands of them. Absolutely. It's a drop in the bucket
6:19
But, you know, this comes at the end of a week where the U.S. relationship with Ukraine has, I mean, not just been on the ropes
6:28
It looks like it was being eviscerated by President Donald Trump. He did speak very glowingly about Melania during a campaign rally just a couple of days ago, saying that she was becoming the new Eleanor Roosevelt
6:44
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wife, who, of course, in her own right, went on to become a major player on the international stage and indeed US ambassador to the United Nations
6:55
So perhaps that was seeding the clouds for this announcement as well
7:00
Let's see where it goes. But on the face of it, there's no question it's potentially a positive development for those civilians in Oleski
7:06
You wouldn't care who organized it as long as it happened, would you? And zooming out from Oleski, you do have to wonder, don't you, whether, you know, we've had such obvious pro-Putin stuff from Trump lately
7:21
Now this I mean is it conceivable that they modelling a kind of arrangement that could lead to a much bigger ceasefire Am I crazy to even think it Well they say that what they doing right President Trump says delicate diplomacy is underway
7:40
behind the scenes with Russia regarding the war in Ukraine. But it is pretty clear that any diplomacy that's taking place with Russia
7:50
without Ukraine at the table, without any European presence at the table
7:55
is not necessarily the kind of diplomacy that is going to lead to a deal
7:59
that Vladimir Zelensky is going to be willing to accept. Now, this is the week in which Vladimir Putin has proposed
8:08
and President Trump has accepted the idea of a three-way meeting on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference summit
8:17
that's going to be taking place in Shenzhen in China next month
8:21
between Putin, Trump and President Xi Jinping of China, the three of them talking about the future of Ukraine
8:29
That is a complete departure, a total evisceration formally of the mantra that the Biden administration always used to repeat
8:39
and that European leaders still repeat, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. I think that there are ways that Korea diplomats would argue
8:49
one could engage in what they would refer to as confidence-building measures with the Russians
8:55
There are ways of having those conversations. That's not the same as Steve Wyckoff, the US Special Envoy
9:02
walking into the Kremlin and on camera describing President Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian
9:10
I mean, that is just such an extraordinary give to Vladimir Putin
9:14
at a time when Donald Trump, without getting anything back from Putin in terms of any commitments is saying, I'll bring you back into the respectable world
9:23
I want you to come to the G20 summit in Florida in December. Vladimir Putin tripping among the
9:29
palm trees in the Sunshine State. Andy Burnham's going to be there. Emmanuel Macron is going to be
9:35
there. Friedrich Mertz is going to be there. How do they handle that situation if Putin accepts the
9:41
invitation? So, you know, there are ways of doing it, but almost certainly not the way, at least
9:46
publicly the Americans are doing it. Well maybe this Melania story maybe this is the way the
9:52
Nobel Peace Prize ends up in the hands of someone in the Trump family. Anyway we'll see
9:56
A Trump. A Trump. The word Trump will be engraved on it
10:00
Simon thank you. Simon Marks, LBC's Washington correspondent
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