Dmitry Peskov

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has awarded US First Lady Melania Trump the Order of Princess Olga, 1st class, for brokering a partial ceasefire that let civilians leave Oleshky, a Russian-occupied town in southern Ukraine. A decree dated 2 Nov and published on Wednesday cited her humanitarian work for Ukraine and her efforts for displaced children. The six-day local truce ended on 1 Nov, the longest such pause since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, and nearly 800 people were evacuated during it. Trump's office says she will host Russian and Ukrainian officials at the White House on Thursday.

Delegations from Ukraine and Russia will meet in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November for talks mediated by the United States, according to the Kremlin and US envoy Steve Witkoff. The discussions are set to cover post-war security, de-escalation and humanitarian steps. Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, will lead Moscow's delegation. It would be the first US-mediated round since February. Separately, the Kremlin said it is working on a possible trilateral meeting of Putin, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping later this month, though China has not yet decided whether to proceed.

A US-brokered local ceasefire in Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city in Ukraine's Kherson region, has held for three days with no reported breaches, officials in Kyiv and Moscow say. The truce began on 27 Oct and is scheduled to run until 1 Nov. It is meant to let humanitarian aid reach roughly 2,000 remaining residents, who have faced food, water and medicine shortages for months, and to allow those wishing to leave to evacuate. Military units have cleared landmines during the pause, and aid is expected to arrive on Friday.