A woman trying to leave Oleshky was injured in the back and limbs by a mine. She was taken to hospital by bicycle.
Her journey reflects the choices facing civilians in the Russian-occupied town on the southern bank of the Dnipro River. Oleshky is approximately nine kilometers in a straight line from liberated Kherson, yet the river and the front line stand between them. Roads out are mined, while drones have created what residents describe as a “kill zone” stretching up to 20 kilometers deep.
Russian troops seized Oleshky on 24 February 2022 as they advanced from occupied Crimea into the Kherson region. Russian units appeared in the area on the first day of the full-scale invasion. Hundreds of residents protested with Ukrainian flags on 8 March 2022. Russian forces removed the Ukrainian flag from the city administration building on 14 April and raised the Russian tricolour.
The destruction of the nearby Kakhovka Dam in 2023 flooded the town and damaged homes and infrastructure. The hospital has relied on generators for electricity since then. The front line has barely moved in the area since 2023, while Russian forces have systematised their blockade of Oleshky since early 2024.
About two thousand people remain in Oleshky, according to the Ukrainian city military administration. A wider estimate covering surrounding villages puts the figure at about six thousand, including 182 children. Before the full-scale war, about 24,000 people lived in the town.
The last successful food delivery to Oleshky was on 26 May 2026. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in June that no official food deliveries had reached the town since late May.
People are making soup from wild greens. Olga, who is in contact with families still in Oleshky, said residents have forgotten what bread is and now live on what little they can grow in their gardens. “In the early days people ate pigeons,” she said, though the birds have become hard to find.
Elizaveta, who runs a social media group for local people, said residents were “literally dreaming of a candy or a piece of meat”. She said those who received food parcels had to conceal them for their own safety. Sergiy, a former resident, said people organised expeditions around the city in search of 100 possible food locations. He escaped in mid-September by walking more than 21 kilometres to the nearby village of Radensk.
Ukrainian forces conducted drone operations that delivered approximately four tons of food to residents across the city. Russian forces began seizing or shooting down the supplies. Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the Oleshky Municipal Military Administration, said Russian forces were confiscating food dropped by Ukrainian drones. “If the Armed Forces of Ukraine are dropping food to you, then you are cooperating with them,” she said Russian forces tell residents.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the Kherson Oblast Governor, said Russian troops shot down food-carrying drones and either confiscated or resold supplies that reached the ground. He said residents found with humanitarian parcels were detained, beaten and subjected to violence in cellars. Russian occupation authorities treat Oleshky as Russian territory and regard residents receiving non-Russian food as having broken Russian law and supported Ukraine’s military. A family disappeared after Russian forces took them to a basement, according to accounts from the town.
Leaving brings its own danger. Four civilians were injured after stepping on a mine while trying to leave at 6am. On 30 September, the head of the local military administration said one person had been killed and four injured by landmines in occupied Oleshky over the previous day. The person killed had been collecting nuts.
Residents move between abandoned buildings to avoid drone raids and looting by Russian troops. Wounded people are also taken to hospital by bicycle and garden trolley. The only available route out leads deeper into Russian-occupied Ukraine, requiring people to walk more than 20 kilometres through mined territory.
The hospital has no basic medical supplies, electricity or running water. Four elderly former hospital staff doctors remain at work there. Its staff can only stop bleeding, and the hospital has asked residents to bring at least some grains for bedridden patients.
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