A low profile during the midterms
President Donald Trump and his closest advisers watched the results Tuesday evening in the White House East Room as Democrats regained Congress. Melania Trump did not attend the private gathering and made no public comment on the Republican losses.
Her absence followed a campaign in which she rarely appeared publicly, apart from joining her husband to vote on Election Day. While the president traveled across the country to support Republican candidates, she largely stayed out of the spotlight, as she has often done during his second term.
Trump had urged voters for months to approach the midterms as though he were on the ballot. Democrats nevertheless won in contested states including Georgia, New Hampshire and North Carolina, as well as Republican strongholds Iowa, Kansas, Texas and South Carolina.
With votes still being counted, Trump responded on Truth Social by emphasizing that he had not been a candidate and asserting that Republicans would have won a landslide had he been on the ballot.
Ukrainian and Russian officials expected Thursday
The White House announced the first lady's diplomatic event while voting was still underway Tuesday. She is scheduled to speak at 11 a.m. Thursday, November 5, in the Grand Foyer, bringing senior representatives of Ukraine and Russia together to discuss the localized truce in Russian-occupied Oleshky and nearby parts of the Kherson region.
According to AFP and RFE/RL, the expected Russian participants are Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and human rights ombudsman Yana Lantratova. Ukraine is to be represented by human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and Davyd Arakhamia, leader of President Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the People parliamentary faction.
The White House designated Melania Trump's role in the ceasefire negotiations as "Exclusive Intermediary." Her office described the result as "an unprecedented diplomatic initiative by an American First Lady."
The negotiations used an existing channel with Moscow and Kyiv. The White House said that channel had previously supported six reunifications involving 34 Ukrainian children.
On November 4, Zelensky awarded the first lady the Order of Princess Olga, First Class, citing her "significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine, and for active human rights and charitable work."
Evacuations during the Oleshky truce
The humanitarian pause began at 3 a.m. Kyiv time on October 27, 2026, CNN reported, two days before the October 29 start originally announced by the White House. It lasted six days and ended Sunday. The Office of the First Lady said nearly 800 people were evacuated and able to return to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
The White House's account describes a city whose population had fallen from roughly 24,000 before the war to an estimated 1,700 to 2,000 by late 2026. Those remaining were mostly older residents unable to leave, along with about 50 children. Following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, flooding covered approximately 90 percent of Oleshky's territory, according to the White House.
The BBC described the agreement as the longest ceasefire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Arakhamia, a key Ukrainian peace negotiator, called it "the most extensive ceasefire to date" and "the largest de-escalation effort since 2022."
Renewed attacks before further talks
Russian attacks intensified again after the agreement expired. On Monday, local authorities reported a strike on a medical facility in central Kherson, according to the BBC. They also said a Russian drone struck a car, injuring a 62-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man.
Ukraine's General Staff accused Russian forces of taking advantage of the humanitarian pause to reinforce positions, rotate troops and bring in ammunition. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "reasonable to assume" that Ukrainian forces had also used the interval to regroup.
Thursday's White House meeting is scheduled ahead of US-mediated talks involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, 2026. AFP described the planned meeting as the first talks among all three sides since February 2026.
