Melania Trump accused of delivering Putin the victory he craved

U.S. first lady Melania Trump visits the Smithsonian's National Museum Of Asian Art with First lady of China Peng Liyuan (not pictured) in Washington, D.C., US, September 24, 2026. Finn Gomez/Pool via REUTERS

A Ukrainian researcher has said Melania Trump may have walked straight into the Kremlin’s trap.

Petro Andrushchenko, head of the Center for the Study of the Occupation, was livid following a Russian drone strike at a train station in Dnipro, about 160 miles from Oleshky, on October 29. The attack killed 14 civilians and injured at least 14 more as they were waiting on the platform

“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," he said. "The Oleshky operation is truly the greatest victory of Russian propaganda.”

The first lady hosted an event at the White House on Thursday with delegations from both Russia and Ukraine in attendance, where both sides praised her efforts to achieve peace.

She said she had “acted immediately” to secure a ceasefire in Oleshky and described herself as the “exclusive intermediary” between the hostile nations. The event lasted about 15 minutes, and the first lady did not take questions from the press.

Nearly 800 people were evacuated from Oleshky, according to the first lady. The frontline Russian-occupied city in the Kherson region has been trapped in a horrific war zone since 2022, with residents facing months of severe food shortages.

Andrushchenko was even more blunt about the propaganda surrounding the operation.

“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.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky has awarded the first lady the Order of Princess Olha, 1st Class, for her humanitarian work supporting Ukraine, including efforts to bring Ukrainian children home.

The Daily Beast reports that Ukrainians have mixed feelings about Melania’s involvement in the Oleshky evacuation. It helped people escape Oleshky while Russian strikes continued elsewhere, including Dnipro. It may have set a precedent for more truces on the frontline, but critics said it also handed Russia a propaganda coup. The report also raised concerns that moving Ukrainians out of occupied territory contributed to ethnic cleansing.

“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 of the Ukrainian human rights group Civil Fortis told the Daily Beast.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff came under fire from U.S. lawmakers and Ukraine for describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian” following Russia’s release of U.S. citizen Stephen Hubbard on October 21.

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