The Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky is now officially evacuating, Russian and Ukrainian authorities have confirmed - a sentence that requires reading twice to fully absorb, which is apparently where we are now.

A ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump has been in force across the entire frontline region of Kherson since Tuesday, which allowed the road out of Oleshky to be demined. That's the good news. The four-hour window is the less good news: an evacuation convoy of 25 buses can carry up to 750 people out of Oleshky until 14:00 (12:00 GMT), with ambulances on hand for people with limited mobility.

Several hundred people, it is understood, have decided to stay in the town - despite widespread devastation and the lack of gas, electricity and running water. "Everyone who wishes to leave Oleshky will be given the opportunity to do so safely," said Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets. "At the same time, those who decide to remain will be able to stay and will receive all the necessary humanitarian assistance." A rare sentence in which both halves are somehow reassuring and bleak at once.

The route itself is a masterpiece of modern logistics: Ukrainian territory lies just 5km (3.1 miles) from Oleshky, but evacuees must first travel into Russian-occupied territory, then to the southern Russian city of Anapa, board a Russian government plane to Gomel in Belarus, and finally drive across the border into Ukraine's Chernihiv region. Others are expected to simply stay in Russian-occupied territory, presumably because the itinerary exhausted them.

Lubinets and his Russian counterpart Yana Lantratova travelled to Oleshky together on Friday. Lantratova later posted a video on social media from the town, saying people were given the chance to form two groups depending on whether they wanted to be taken to Russian-controlled territory or to Ukraine. In videos posted to his own social media account, Lubinets can be seen meeting tearful locals. "The problem is that a lot of people are staying," he can be heard saying. "I was told that it was their own choice, we will do everything possible for the humanitarian aid to arrive."

Russia said on Thursday it had prepared "dozens of tonnes" of aid for residents who do not wish to leave, including food, medicine, hygiene products and fuel for generators. One Oleshky resident told the BBC she had decided against leaving because "they wouldn't take my animals, so that's it." Olena, who now lives in Kyiv, said her grandmother and wider family in Oleshky were also staying behind. "The older generation does not want to leave," she told the BBC. "I've barely managed to persuade my father - and only because I've just had a baby, who he would never see otherwise."

Her grandmother's sister died in Oleshky last winter. "She lost her legs after stepping on a landmine, covered in snow... People took her to the hospital in a garden wheelbarrow," Olena said. "That's how locals transport all wounded and dead people in Oleshky to the hospital and the hospital's morgue: in garden wheelbarrows."

The ceasefire is due to remain in force until the end of Sunday 1 November - the first few days of peace in the Kherson region since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A brief peace, in a place where residents once ate weeds to survive, and where the local ambulance service runs on garden equipment. The buses are running. The window is four hours. The wheelbarrows, one suspects, remain on standby.