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IrelandOleshky evacuees describe fear before boarding buses to safety
Sky News's border report captures family reunions and residents explaining why they waited so long to leave their homes.
Sky News
Story of Why this story? One of Sky News's most watched videos since yesterday, with 98,854 views.
Hundreds escape Russian-occupied city after months without food and water
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:00Ramsay reports from the border holding area as buses bring evacuees from Oleshky.
- 0:52Residents describe fear before departure and their reluctance to leave while they still hoped for peace.
- 1:36The evacuation involved multiple planes and buses, with residents taking their pets.
- 2:11Aerial footage dated 20 October shows extensive destruction of residential buildings in Oleshky.
- 3:22Ramsay explains that residents had remained because Oleshky was the only home they had.
Relatives embrace beside the buses, some wrapped in Ukrainian flags. Ambulances wait nearby for those needing medical attention. At the Ukraine-Belarus border, Sky News's Stuart Ramsay witnesses the arrival of hundreds of residents evacuated from Russian-occupied Oleshky.
The exact number returning has not been confirmed by officials, Ramsay says. His report adds evacuees' own accounts to the military movements during the ceasefire that we reported here earlier.
"Until we got on the buses, we were afraid of everything. We were so worried and nervous," one woman tells reporters. Another explains why departure came so late: "We really did not want to leave until the last moment." She had stayed hoping for peace.
Ramsay reports severe shortages of food, water and electricity since May. An older evacuee describes substantial weight loss over more than a year of hardship. The journey out involved multiple planes and buses, with residents bringing their pets as well as their belongings.
Oleshky lies on the left bank of the Dnieper in southern Ukraine's Kherson region. Aerial footage dated 20 October shows extensive damage to residential buildings, a stark contrast with the embraces at the border.
For those arriving, leaving was not simply a matter of finding transport. As Ramsay puts it: "The reason they stayed in Oleshky in the first place is because that was the only home they had."
A landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordering Ukraine to the south and Russia to the east and northeast. Its capital is Minsk.
More on Wikipedia ›A city on the left bank of the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region.
More on Wikipedia ›Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Sky News
- Subscribers
- 9,390,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 15,690,156
- Channel views, pace per day
- 2,844,484 (on a normal day: 2,198,532)
- Video published
- October 31, 2026
- Video views so far
- 143,383 (2 days online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 98,862 (on a normal day: 78,500)
The numbers
The border report drew about 99,000 views since yesterday, making it Sky News's most-watched video over that period among uploads from the past two days.
