MOSCOW FOOL

Melania Accused of Accidentally Handing Putin His ‘Greatest Victory’

Ukrainians fear the first lady has given Putin the perfect gift after helping to broker the evacuation of a war-ravaged city.

Vladimir Putin has used the evacuation of a war-ravaged city brokered by Melania Trump as a propaganda tool to portray himself as a humanitarian, Ukrainian human rights figures claim.

Around 700 Ukrainians were evacuated from Oleshky, a frontline Russian-occupied city in Kherson where 1,700 people have been on the brink of starvation after nearly five years trapped in the hellish war zone.

The first lady hosted a summit at the White House on Thursday, attended by delegations from Russia and Ukraine, where both nations gushed over her efforts to secure peace.

She said she had “acted immediately” to secure a peace deal in Oleshky and lauded herself as the “exclusive intermediary” between the warring nations. The entire spectacle lasted around 15 minutes, and she declined to take any questions from the press.

But as the evacuation began last week—under the eyes of a MAGA-friendly news network granted access by the Kremlin—a Russian drone strike at a train station 160 miles away in Dnipro wiped out 14 innocent Ukrainians and injured at least 14 others as they waited on the platform.

Just before noon, Petro Andrushchenko heard the roar of a jet-powered drone zooming over his district, a massive explosion and, minutes later, the howling sounds of ambulances rushing toward the station.

Russia has attacked hundreds of Ukraine’s trains before, but whoever flew the killer drone on Thursday knew it was the day of the first large-scale rescue operation negotiated between Ukraine and Russia—with the help of the first lady.

The first images from Dnipro were terrifying: the platform was covered in bodies. Speaking with the Daily Beast, Andrushchenko, the head of the Center for the Study of the Occupation, was furious.

“Melania, look, they just killed two more little girls,” he said.

The war, which Vladimir Putin started in February 2022, has killed at least 73,000 peaceful Ukrainians, including more than ten thousand in Mariupol, Andrushchenko’s hometown, which is now under the Kremlin’s control.

“While screaming to the world how much he wants Melania Trump to mediate saving 1,500 people in Oleshky, Putin continues to kill civilians 10 minutes away from my house, continues to bomb Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia,” he told the Daily Beast.

“Now Putin will be a ‘humanitarian’ for moving people from Oleshky to Russia. The Oleshky operation is truly the greatest victory of Russian propaganda.”

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff came under fire last month for sucking up to Putin by calling him a “humanitarian” during face-to-face talks in St. Petersburg.

Four American journalists from the Trump-friendly news channel Newsmax were on the ground as the evacuation of Oleshky began last week.

One of the reporters raved about the “ceasefire negotiated by the first lady” and spoke of the hope on both sides that Melania will continue to make strides toward “a peace process in the Russo-Ukrainian war,” Le Monde reported.

In Kyiv, an international source stifled laughter as he told the French newspaper, “Having realized he won’t be getting the Nobel Peace Prize, perhaps Trump wants to try and get it for Melania...”

Andrushchenko was more direct. “Using Donald Trump and Melania as their façade, Russian propaganda is building a campaign in order to blame Ukraine, put the ‘genocide,’ hunger in Oleshky on our shoulders,” he said. “They are allowing American journalists in; they have brought a bunch of dubious reporters from Moscow. Not sure how Ukraine is supposed to react.”

The famine in Oleshky started in March, when drone warfare around the town became too intense for trucks with supplies to enter by road.

As a result of the ceasefire negotiated with Putin, advocated by Pope Leo XIV and attributed to the first lady, more than 500 people were evacuated to Ukraine last weekend, and more than 200 people traveled to Russia.

Ukrainian President Zelensky awarded the first lady the country’s highest award for women, the Order of Princess Olha, 1st Class, for her efforts in repatriating children this week.

“If the first lady can do this, can keep doing it, it will be very helpful. I’m very grateful to her,” he said.

Ukrainians have mixed feelings about Melania Trump’s participation in the city’s evacuation. It saved some people in Oleshky, but not others in Dnipro. It created a possible template for more frontline truces. It contributed to the ethnic cleansing of Ukrainians from occupied territory. It handed a propaganda tool to Russia.

“Melania Trump brokered a ceasefire without a single independent monitor in the room, and Russia used that gap to stage exactly the picture it wanted the world to see,” Lyudmyla Yankina from Ukrainian human rights group Civil Fortis told the Daily Beast.

“She never mentioned the roughly 2,000 civilians Russia has held in Oleshky for years as a human shield or the residents abducted into filtration camps who are still unaccounted for. She’s lending her credibility to the very propaganda operation Russia built this ‘humanitarian mission’ to produce. Good intentions don’t excuse that kind of silence when lives and the truth are both on the line.”

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Tania Lokshina, associate director of the European division of Human Rights Watch, called on the first lady to pressure Russia to free women it has imprisoned.

“We don’t know how significant Melania Trump’s role was in the negotiations regarding the Oleshky evacuation, but obviously she played some role, so the majority of devastated people were able to leave this deserted, war-torn town,” she said.

“And the first lady managed to facilitate this important meeting between Ukraine and Russia representatives. Please draw their attention to about 300 women kept in Russian prisons, including two dozen women prisoners who are severely ill.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the first lady’s office for comment.

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Anna Nemtsova

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