Image source, ReutersThe US first lady will host Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the White House on Thursday
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given the country’s highest award for women to the US First Lady, Melania Trump.
The Order of Princess Olga, 1st Class, was awarded to Melania Trump for her “significant personal contribution to humanitarian support for Ukraine”, according to the presidential decree.
It comes after the end of ceasefire in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson, which allowed for the evacuation of several hundred people from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations – made up of ombudsmen who were involved in the evacuation mission as well as senior officials – are due to meet at the White House on Thursday on Melania Trump’s invitation.
The White House said that Melania Trump had “independently initiated engagement between the two warring nations and successfully secured a ceasefire”.
“This achievement marks an unprecedented diplomatic initiative by an American First Lady”, it added.
Both the Russian and Ukrainian sides repeatedly thanked Melania Trump for brokering the ceasefire, though neither elaborated on the nature or extent of her involvement.
The delegations travelling to the White House on Thursday will include Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova, as well as Ukrainian MP Davyd Arakhamia and Russian senior official Kirill Dmitriev.
Lubinets and Lantratova travelled together into Oleshky last week, in an unusual show of cooperation between Russian and Ukrainian officials.
Arakhamia, a Ukrainian MP who heads Zelensky’s party in parliament, has previously been part of the Ukrainian negotiating team during peace talks with Russia.
He was responsible for informal contact between the White House and Moscow during the ceasefire, according to diplomatic sources quoted by Ukrainian media, and has confirmed he will take part in Thursday’s talks.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian delegation will be made up of Lantratova and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian businessman close to the Kremlin who has frequently taken part in US-brokered ceasefire talks.
Although both Dmitriev and Arakhamia are veteran participants in high-level peace negotiations, meetings involving such senior representatives are rarely convened through an initiative led by a US First Lady.
No details of what the White House event will entail have been shared. “There are important meetings ahead,” said Lubinets in a social media post while announcing he was on his way to the US.
On Thursday Melania Trump will also deliver remarks on the ceasefire in Oleshky at 11:00 (16:00 GMT), the White House website said.
Zelensky’s decree also cited Melania Trump’s wider humanitarian work, including her efforts concerning Ukrainian children affected by the war, as reasons for giving her the Princess Olga award.
Melania Trump has largely remained discreet on foreign policy matters, but in 2025 she said an “open channel of communication” had been established with Russian President Vladimir Putin, allowing for Ukrainian children displaced in the war to be reunited with families.
Earlier this year the UN said the deportation and forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia constitutes a crime against humanity and a war crime.
According to Ukraine, almost 20,000 children have been illegally sent to Russia and Belarus since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian, Ukrainian and American representatives are also going to meet in Abu Dhabi next week in the first trilateral meeting since February. The talks will be focused on postwar security agreements and de-escalation, US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday.
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‘The city is alive’: A brief peace in Kherson, but residents fear what comes next
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