Oct 29 (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine both praised US first lady Melania Trump on Thursday for helping to broker a truce around the acutely deprived Russian-held Ukrainian town of Oleshky, as efforts began to bring in food and medicines and enable hundreds to leave.
Yet any sense of wider relief in a war that began with a Russian invasion almost five years ago was rapidly dispelled by a drone strike that killed 13 people crowding onto a commuter train at the main station in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro,
according to local officials, where no ceasefire was in place.
The Oleshky operation aims to address a growing crisis in a town marooned inside a war zone since 2022 - but is also part of a diplomatic dance where both sides want to show US President Donald Trump that they back his peace efforts, albeit for different reasons.
Yana Lantratova, Russia's human rights commissioner, said she was taking four journalists from the conservative US outlet Newsmax to the area as her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Lubinets, also headed for Oleshky.
PUTIN SAYS MOSCOW IS MAKING PEACE EFFORTS
President Vladimir Putin told a summit in Moscow that relief supplies would begin reaching civilians on Thursday and Friday, "with the support, incidentally, of the First Lady of the United States".
Lubinets, for his part, extended Kyiv's "special thanks" to someone who was "personally devoting her time and attention to the humanitarian mission and assistance to civilians in Oleshky".
Trump has cast Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as an obstacle to peace while praising Putin, who emphasised on Thursday that Russia was "working on issues relating to a possible peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis itself".
Although Russia, like Ukraine, denies targeting civilians, strikes on trains and other civilian infrastructure have become increasingly common as Ukraine's stocks of air defence missiles have dwindled. Civilian deaths have also increased inside Russia.
On Thursday, the state rail company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said a jet-powered drone had hit a platform in the Ukrainian industrial hub of Dnipro where a commuter train was preparing to depart for nearby Zaporizhzhia.
Although US-mediated peace talks are due to resume next month in Abu Dhabi after a long pause, the two sides are far apart when it comes to terms for ending the war.
But both recognise the power of Trump, who has another two years in power left regardless of the outcome of US midterm legislative elections next month, to affect the course of the conflict.
Russia still hopes that Trump can pressure Kyiv into agreeing a deal that meets many of its conditions - such as full Russian control of Ukraine's Donbas region and a bar on Ukraine joining the transatlantic defence alliance, NATO.
Kyiv, meanwhile, wants to ensure that US intelligence sharing continues along with full access to Elon Musk's recently disrupted battlefield communications system, Starshield, and that European-bought US military hardware, including Patriot interceptor missiles, continues to flow.
KHERSON CEASEFIRE DUE TO CONTINUE UNTIL SUNDAY
The truce applies only to Oleshky and the wider Kherson region, which has suffered years of near-daily drone and artillery attacks. Some 1,500 of the prewar population of 24,000 people are believed to live among the ruins, under regular shellfire amid severe shortages of food and medicine.
Ukraine has long accused Russia of refusing to let aid in or people out. Russia says it is Ukrainian mines on the approach roads and Ukrainian shelling that have prevented the delivery of aid or the safe evacuation of residents.
By the middle of Thursday, neither Ukraine nor Russia had reported any violations of the ceasefire, which was due to last until Sunday.
"Demining is under way there, and we hope that today or tomorrow residents will be able to receive humanitarian aid safely and without obstruction, and that those wishing to leave will be able to do so,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Residents wishing to leave and return to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government are expected to exit via Russia-controlled Crimea before crossing into southern Russia and being flown to Belarus from where they will be able to cross the border into Ukraine.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey)
