Ahead of a harsh winter, the Netherlands is giving Ukraine €1.2 billion to keep the lights and water on under Russian strikes. Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Sjoerd Sjoerdsma announced the aid during a visit to Kyiv on 28 October.

The package comes as Russia targets Ukraine’s energy system every winter. Last winter’s strikes damaged or destroyed roughly 80% of the grid, and Moscow’s next target is Ukraine’s water supply.

“Ukraine is under heavy fire and faces a very harsh winter,” Sjoerdsma said.

That, he stated, is why the government is taking additional steps now. The funds will be distributed over the next three years.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed $8-10 billion to get through winter, TSN reported.

The Netherlands shores up Ukraine’s power and water

Also, the Netherlands is fast-tracking €40 million this year to Ukraine’s Energy Support Fund for urgent repairs to power and water facilities, which are increasingly targeted by Russian strikes.

Another €55 million goes to in-kind support: energy equipment supplied by Dutch companies to Ukrainian partners through the Netherlands Enterprise Agency.

The money will also help build emergency reserves and train staff in the energy and water sectors.

Dutch business steps into Ukraine’s reconstruction

Most of the rest goes to business. Some €136 million will go to the Partnership Facility with Ukraine and other programs, and a further €19.5 million is added to export credit insurance, on top of an existing €60 million line, to lower the risk for Dutch companies entering the Ukrainian market.

Separately, the Netherlands signed a letter of intent to contribute €10 million to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “Industrial Ramstein” initiative, which aims to restore and modernize the production capacity of Ukrainian companies. Sjoerdsma traveled to Kyiv with Koen van Oostrom, chair of the business association VNO-NCW.

The support also covers the search for Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, through the UN, as well as housing, humanitarian aid, healthcare, demining, and the restoration of cultural heritage.

In all, the Netherlands is confirming the previously promised €878 million in non-military aid and an additional €327 million, much of it delivered through the EBRD, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank.

The same day, President Zelenskyy said he had arrived in the Netherlands on an official visit. The two sides plan to discuss defense and economic cooperation, strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses, and further support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy is also set to have an audience with King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.

Civilians in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson Oblast, are to be evacuated from the town hospital on the morning of 30 October, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, told DW on 27 October. The date could still change, he said.

Oleshky, a town on the Dnipro’s left bank across from Kherson, has been occupied by Russia since February 2022 and has gone short of food and medicine for months. Of about 24,000 pre-war residents, 1,700 to 2,000 remain, mostly elderly, the White House estimates. Drone strikes and mines have cut the town off from the rest of the region, the Financial Times reported. The evacuation would give them an organized way out, and test whether Russia lets those who choose Ukraine actually leave.

The route for those who want to go to Ukrainian-controlled territory is not yet set and will likely pass through Russia, Tolokonnikov said. “There will be two paths,” he added: one for those who want to stay in occupied territory or in Russia, and one for those who want to leave.

Putin calls Oleshky a “Russian settlement”

On 27 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin described Oleshky as a “Russian settlement” in a call with the leaders of Finland and Norway, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported. ISW said it remains unclear whether occupation authorities will give residents “a legitimate and duress-free choice” to return to Ukraine. It warned that Moscow may treat holders of Russian passports as Russian citizens with no legal recourse to return.

People with knowledge of the talks told the Financial Times that residents who agree to leave would first be taken to occupied Crimea or Russia. The paper also reported that buses would take people out on Thursday morning, 29 October, a day earlier than the date Tolokonnikov gave.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a television interview on 25 October, the FT reported, that Russia would “de-mine in such a way that these people go towards Russia and remain there.”

Truce holds into a second day

The ceasefire took effect at 03:00 Kyiv time on 27 October and runs until 22:59 on 1 November, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said on X. A day later, he wrote that Oleshky had gone 30 hours without an incident, crediting his contact with Russia’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova. The goal, he wrote, is to “create the conditions for the safe departure of those who need it.”

The truce also covers Kherson Oblast’s coast, and Kherson city has gone quiet, Tolokonnikov told DW. The city has “literally come alive,” Lubinets wrote on 28 October, adding that both sides were still fully complying as of 12:00. On the truce’s first day, Volodymyr Obertas, an Oleshky-born press officer of Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, was killed in central Kherson while escorting journalists. The brigade’s communications chief told Suspilne he stepped on an unidentified explosive device. The Defense Ministry’s Army TV said Russian forces detonated it remotely.

The deal reaches beyond Oleshky. Under terms both sides signed, Russia and Ukraine are to organize aid deliveries and repatriation in Kherson Oblast settlements as needed, at least once a month, after the Oleshky mission, Fox News reported.

The White House announced the ceasefire on 23 October, crediting First Lady Melania Trump with brokering it.

“I anticipate some will want to go to Russia, and some to Ukraine,” she said.

Drone-dropped aid and warning of staged Russian videos

Ukraine’s 34th Marine Brigade, working with National Guard and border guard units in Joint Forces South, delivered about 4 tons of food and medicine to Oleshky by drone, the command said on 25 October. According to intelligence, Russia is preparing dozens of staged videos in the town, in which residents would be forced to say on camera that they are well fed and grateful to the occupiers, it added.

Residents who try to leave the front-line town on their own cross mined ground, and Russian troops have seized food that Ukraine dropped in by drone.

A Russian jet-powered drone set homes on fire in Kharkiv’s Osnovianskyi district during the night, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) reported. A small child was among the people hurt. Around 13:00 on 28 October, another Russian drone hit the same district, starting a fire, killing one person and injuring two, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Of the 88 Shahed-type drones Russia launched from 18:00 on 27 October, 38 were jet-powered, the Air Force reported. By its preliminary count at 08:00, defenses had downed or jammed 31 of those 38. Several drones were still in the air. Russia also fired an Iskander-M or S-400 ballistic missile from Taganrog. Even so, Russian weapons hit eight locations, and debris fell on two more.

One strike, a casualty count that shifted

Kharkiv Oblast head Oleh Syniehubov reported a drone strike on the district at 22:42 on 27 October. At 23:12, he clarified that a child hurt in the strike had acute stress reaction. At 23:39, he listed four people hurt: women aged 32 and 65, a 56-year-old man, and a 4-year-old boy. Three went to hospital. Eight minutes later, he added that a 65-year-old woman had acute stress reaction. His morning summary of the day’s strikes lists two 65-year-old women in Kharkiv, one wounded and one with acute stress.

The SES put the number of people hurt at five, including the child. Rescuers said a jet-powered drone struck the area, starting a 2,500 m² fire.

Kharkiv’s last two days

The Osnovianskyi fire was part of a run of Russian strikes on Kharkiv and the area around it. On the evening of 26 October, Russian multiple rocket launchers hit the city’s Novobavarskyi district, killing two people and hurting four. That night, jet drones struck three places in Kharkiv district, which surrounds the city. One hit, in the settlement of Vilshany, left people hurt. The SES counted three injured that night.

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During the day on 27 October, another Russian jet drone hit a warehouse in the city’s Slobidskyi district. Preliminary reports showed no casualties. Drones also hit the Shevchenkivskyi district that afternoon, wounding one person, Terekhov said. Another hit damaged an administrative building in the Kholodnohirskyi district, he added. Hours later came the strike on Osnovianskyi. Across Kharkiv Oblast, 14 people were hurt over the past day, including a child, Syniehubov’s morning summary shows. In Osnovianskyi, rescuers were again working under the threat of repeat strikes.

Russia has fired more than 100 ballistic missiles at Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast since 14 October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address on 27 October. He said partners’ air defense packages are being delayed.

Ukraine’s front-line positions are stronger than they have been in a long time, Zelenskyy said. If partners’ support for Patriots and other air defense remained just as strong, he argued, Ukraine would be in a much better position diplomatically as well. He expects trilateral talks with US and Russian representatives in November. The US, on which, he said, “almost everything concerning Patriots depends,” will be one of the three sides.

Delays and the war on logistics

Overnight on 27 October, Russia launched 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones, in what Zelenskyy called a serious escalation of Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s logistics. The strikes hit the State University of Trade and Economics campus and the Southern Bridge in Kyiv.

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A 46-year-old woman was killed and 15 people were injured, among them dormitory residents and two medics, the Kyiv prosecutor’s office said on the morning of 27 October.

Zelenskyy wrote that artificial and lengthy delays in interceptor packages for Patriots and NASAMS directly help Russia achieve the goals of its terror campaign. In his evening address, he added:

“And everyone hears, everyone sees that right now, it is difficult for us to defend against Russian ballistic missiles. And above all, we do not have enough missiles for Patriots.”

A month waiting on Hegseth

Earlier, on 26 October, Zelenskyy wrote that Ukraine had waited almost a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s signature on missiles for Patriots and NASAMS. Kyiv is also working with Europe and other partners, he added.

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Separately, The Washington Post reported on 19 October that some transfers come from allies and need Hegseth’s approval, because the US must sign off on re-transfers. Zelenskyy’s post does not say whether his wait concerns those transfers.

Before Zelenskyy’s latest statements, US officials rejected claims of a deliberate hold. A US government official called Ukraine’s claims “not true,” the Kyiv Independent reported. On 20 October, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there was “nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine.” Hegseth said the US had not changed its posture toward Ukraine but wants “our guys” to have as many interceptors as possible.