France
Melania hosts
This Thursday at 11 am, Melania Trump receives a Russian delegation and a Ukrainian delegation at the White House. Between the two, a town, Oleshky, and 750 residents who got out under a truce last week. Kyiv gave her its highest award for women on Wednesday.
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Dmytro Lubinets and Yana Lantratova walked into Oleshky together last week: Ukraine’s human rights commissioner and his Russian counterpart, side by side on the front line. From 27 October to 1 November, the truce held: food, medicine, and 750 of 2,000 residents out of the occupied town, three quarters of them bound for Ukraine.
An “unprecedented initiative”
Behind the truce, a First Lady. The White House says Melania Trump “independently initiated” the contact and “secured a ceasefire”, an “unprecedented diplomatic initiative”. Moscow and Kyiv thanked her, without saying what exactly she did. On Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky awarded her the Order of Princess Olha for her “personal contribution” to humanitarian aid.
Thursday, 11 am
This Thursday at 11 am, Washington time, she receives Lubinets, Lantratova, MP Davyd Arakhamia and Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin’s negotiator. Zelensky is in Madrid, and everyone meets again in Abu Dhabi next week. A town saved, a medal, a drawing room: what if peace came through a First Lady?
Based on BBC, Le Monde, Maison-Blanche and RFI