The hundreds of evacuees from the blockaded town of Oleshky, Ukraine, have arrived at their destination in Ukraine, sooner than I had anticipated.

Traveling by bus, plane, and a final bus trip across the border from Belarus, the survivors of four and a half years of Putin’s devastating occupation have returned to sovereign Ukrainian soil to restart their lives.

Credit for brokering the temporary ceasefire around Oleshky in the Russian-occupied Kherson region is being given to Melania Trump. And perhaps she did take an active interest in the plight of the 2,000 people who had been left there to starve to death.

But we all know that nothing would have taken place if Vladimir Putin hadn’t allowed it to happen . . . and he does nothing without a reason. Perhaps it was part of a trade-off for the U.S. lifting of sanctions and the purchase of his country’s diesel fuel. We may never know for sure.

The most important thing right now is that those people are free at last, and will be cared for as they recuperate from their unimaginable ordeal.

Whatever else Putin has up his sleeve, we can deal with later. For today, we celebrate.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/31/26