Ukraine's city of Oleshky faces starvation as Russia blocks all aid
Russia is shooting down food deliveries, confiscating supplies that reach the ground and blocking evacuation of some 2,000 residents still trapped in the occupied Kherson town, where the Council of Europe warns civilians face "a high risk of death" with no food, medicine, water or electricity.
Ukrainian forces have delivered around 4 tonnes of food to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in the Kherson region by drone in one of the largest such operations of the war, as roughly 2,000 remaining residents face what international organisations have described as a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
Oleshky has been under Russian occupation since the early days of Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022. No food has reached the city through regular channels since May of this year, according to ground reports.
Meanwhile, Russian forces are blocking civilians from evacuating and actively obstructing drone deliveries.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said troops are shooting down food-carrying drones, confiscating or reselling supplies that reach the ground, and detaining residents found with humanitarian parcels.
Soldiers are conducting house-to-house searches for dropped food, residents report.
Ukrainian forces have been delivering aid by drone across the Dnipro since March, the regional administration said. The location and timing of individual operations are withheld for security reasons. Ukrainian troops hold positions on the right bank of the Dnipro, several kilometres from the city.
Thousands in peril of death
The regional military administration puts the population still in Oleshky at around 2,000, including nearly 50 children, down from 25,000 residents before Russia's all-out invasion in early 2022.
The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations estimates more than 6,000 people remain in the city and surrounding area, including around 200 children.
Ukrainian officials say anyone suspected of contact with Ukrainian authorities or armed forces faces immediate execution.
Conditions in the city have deteriorated sharply since the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam in June 2023, which flooded large parts of the region, destroyed hundreds of homes and blocked wells and sewage systems. At least 200 to 300 people died in Oleshky in the flooding alone.
Residents now rely primarily on their own gardens for food, face chronic medicine shortages and move between abandoned buildings to avoid drone raids and looting by Russian troops, according to reports from the city.
"People are lying on the roads, rotting, unburied. Today in the basement of the hospital, the very one that has had no electricity for four years now, there are more than 100 corpses," Tetyana Hasanenko, an employee of the Oleshky city military administration, told ABC News.
The 34th Separate Marine Brigade "Borysfen," involved in the drone deliveries, published footage from the city in April that it described as showing a settlement Russian forces had "turned into a ghost town".
"People are forced to eat grass and weeds to survive. The roads are mined, it is almost impossible to get out safely, and shelling and drone attacks continue all around," Musician Artem Pivovarov said.
"There are reports that the bodies of those killed remain on the streets for months, there is no one to collect them."
Evacuation plan obstructed by Moscow
Kyiv has drawn up a humanitarian evacuation plan that the International Committee of the Red Cross is prepared to join.
Ukraine's human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said Russia has not confirmed its readiness to allow the mission to proceed. Without agreed access, volunteers cannot enter the city on their own.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has called on international organisations to secure humanitarian access.
"Russia is deliberately provoking a humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied part of the Kherson region. It is blocking access to food and medicine, obstructing the delivery of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of civilians, while Russian FPV drones hunt people in the streets," Sybiha said.
The UN mission in Ukraine described the situation in Oleshky as "desperate" in June, saying thousands of civilians faced "a serious threat to their lives, a lack of food and no access to medical care."
Michael O'Flaherty, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, said he was "alarmed by the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis".
"Civilians, including children, are trapped without sufficient food, medicines, medical care, running water or electricity," O'Flaherty said in a statement.
"Reports indicate that they face a high risk of death."
O'Flaherty reminded Russia of its legal obligations: under international humanitarian law, the occupying power must ensure the population has access to food and medicines.
Ukrainian tennis player Oleksandra Oliinykova, ranked world number 47, drew public attention to the city on social media: "Please, google Oleshky. It is a town that is currently under temporary occupation. There is a humanitarian catastrophe there."
Ukrainian supporters displayed a banner reading "Save Oleshky" during a recent Hungary-Ukraine football match.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the situation in Oleshky was "indeed critical" but blamed the "Kyiv regime" for blocking deliveries.
Oleshky is not the only Ukrainian settlement rendered uninhabitable under Russian occupation or bombardment since February 2022.
Mariupol, a port city of around 425,000 people, was razed in a weeks-long Russian siege in spring 2022, while Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region were almost entirely destroyed before falling to Russian forces in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Towns including Volnovakha, Rubizhne and Maryinka have been reduced to rubble along the frontline. Ukrainian authorities estimate more than 210,000 buildings have been destroyed across the country since the full-scale invasion began.
