Hundreds of residents have escaped the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, arriving in the northern Ukrainian region of Chernihiv on Saturday after a humanitarian ceasefire opened a narrow window to get out.

Olha has one word for life in Oleshky over the past few years, and it is not a complicated one. “Horror.” Her husband, Viacheslav, stepped off the coach in Chernihiv with their immediate family and their dog and put it another way. “We came back from hell.”

“We came back from hell.”

The couple were among the evacuees who crossed into northern Ukraine on Saturday, many of them reuniting with relatives they had not seen in years. Oleshky was seized by Russia during the first few days of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Since then, it has been boxed in on one side by the Dnipro River and on the other by Russian forces.

The mines and the hunger

Olha and Viacheslav lived there with their son and daughter, both in their 30s. As the shelling around them intensified, they feared that trying to leave would be even more dangerous. Routes were mined and exposed to drone attacks.

Supplies ran out. Earlier this month, the couple tried to find food by crossing through minefields. “People were stepping on mines, dying and being maimed, all just to survive,” Olha said.

Those too afraid to venture outside had resorted to cooking garden weeds to stay alive. Olha said the decision to leave came when it became clear nothing was going to improve. “We saw that the situation wasn’t getting any better, so we realised we had to get out.”

A ceasefire and a four-hour window

The chance came earlier this week. A humanitarian ceasefire, brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump, took effect in the Kherson region. It delivered the first few days of peace in the area in four years and gave Oleshky residents a way out.

Up to 6,000 people, including 200 children, were believed to still be living in Oleshky and its surrounding areas. About 1,700 of them were in the city itself.

Residents had a four-hour window on Friday to leave. A convoy of 25 buses was brought in, with room for up to 750 evacuees, along with ambulances for people with limited mobility.

The journey was long and difficult. Evacuees travelled through Russian-occupied territory to southern Russia, then flew to Belarus. From there, they came by bus to a military facility in Chernihiv on Saturday.

Carried off the tarmac

At the facility, evacuees were processed before moving on. Some elderly residents were so weak they had to be carried on stretchers across the tarmac. For many, the moment was defined by emotional reunions.

Tetiana and Volodymyr arrived carrying a cat. Their entire home had been burned down three years ago, and they had been living in the abandoned house of a neighbour since. For them, leaving at the first safe opportunity was an easy call.

“There’s nothing for us to regret leaving,” Tetiana said. “We don’t have relatives there. Our children are married and don’t live with us in the city.”

Still, the people who got out are thinking about the ones who did not. “There are still a lot of people left there, living under those conditions,” Olha said.

Starting again with nothing

Getting out is only the first step. The evacuees now face the harder question of where to go next and how to rebuild their lives.

Palii said he plans to look for work so he can provide for his family. “There’s no job I can’t handle. Digging, hoeing, planting, building. I can even do demolition work.”

Olha said her family has no relatives elsewhere in Ukraine. They will stay with acquaintances for an extended period while they get back on their feet. Her words carried a defiance that many in that coach seemed to share. “If we managed to survive in hell, we’ll survive here too.”

The people of Oleshky made it out of a place that had cut them off for years. Now they have to build something new from almost nothing, and for the first time in a long while, they get to decide where that happens.