A humanitarian crisis is gripping Russian-occupied Oleshky as food deliveries stop and safe evacuation becomes nearly impossible

Oleshky (Alyoshki in Russian) is a city on the left bank of the Dnipro River, across from Kherson on the right bank. Only nine kilometers (about six miles) separate them in a straight line. People once crossed between them by bridge, but the bridge is now closed. The two cities are on opposite sides of the front: Ukraine controls Kherson, while Russia has controlled Oleshky since 2022. As in other cities near the front, life in Oleshky is difficult and dangerous. By September 2026, conditions had deteriorated so badly that people in both Ukraine and Russia were calling the situation critical. Those who remain are trying to survive without food, electricity, and adequate medical care. They cannot leave safely and often cannot even bury their loved ones. Here is what Meduza has been able to learn about conditions in the city.

The situation in Oleshky was already being called critical in Ukraine in the spring. By September, even the Kremlin agreed

“It’s a humanitarian catastrophe, people are driven to despair,” Tetiana Hasanenko, head of Oleshky’s evacuated Ukrainian administration, told The Kyiv Independent in April 2026. She tries to keep in touch with residents and tells Ukrainian media what is happening there.

“If the situation doesn’t improve, people will just die there from hunger. Because there’s no way out, no food supplies coming in,” Anna, an Oleshky resident who recently escaped to a Ukrainian-controlled area, told the outlet.

In the summer, the U.N. mission in Ukraine said Oleshky’s last store had closed in January 2026, and all food deliveries had stopped by late May. Medical care was available only for the most urgent cases. Ambulances no longer responded to calls, and patients with serious conditions could not be transferred to other hospitals. Anyone trying to enter or leave the city faced two dangers: drones overhead and mines on the ground.

In July, Human Rights Watch said shortages of food and medical care in Oleshky were compounded by the collapse of basic utilities. The city had no electricity or gas, and people had switched to wood-burning stoves. People who had managed to leave Oleshky said they were afraid even to go out for water because drones circled overhead and mines lay scattered along the streets. Human Rights Watch said it was impossible to say for certain whose weapons they were. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces had used drones and mines in the area during the war.

At the time, the Russian occupation authorities in the Kherson region still denied that there was a humanitarian catastrophe. By August, however, they acknowledged that Oleshky and nearby villages had no water or electricity, communications were unreliable, and utility crews could not make repairs because of shelling. On September 21, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the situation in the city critical. “The Kyiv regime is doing everything it can to obstruct deliveries [of food and medicine]. Russian troops are continuing to work to resolve the situation,” he said.

Gardens fed Oleshky’s residents through the summer. No one knows what winter will bring. Some are reportedly already eating dogs.

It is difficult to reach Oleshky’s residents now, Ukrainska Pravda reported. Some go months without making contact. Those who can charge a phone with a generator and occasionally call or send a message say food is scarce. “People have run out of food. They’re making soup with weeds, throwing in purslane, lamb’s quarters, and amaranth. I can’t even talk about the animals anymore — they have it worst of all. I just cry and don’t know what to do,” one Oleshky resident told Ukrainska Pravda.

Through the summer, residents survived mainly on what they grew in their gardens. Bartering is widespread in the city. “Anything you can still buy costs, say, a thousand rubles. A kilogram of sugar or salt is a thousand rubles; so is a pack of Citramon [painkillers]. But money is actually worth nothing, because no matter how much you have, no one is selling anything,” Hasanenko told Suspilne.

Some people risk traveling to Radensk for food. The village is 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from Oleshky, farther from the front, and better supplied. But the trips are dangerous because of mines and drones. An Oleshky resident who recently returned from Radensk told Ukrainska Pravda that she brought back 85 kilograms (about 190 pounds) of food for three families. She rode a bicycle to Radensk but returned to Oleshky on foot.

Hasanenko told Ukrainska Pravda that people in the city had begun eating dogs: “A week ago, I was still denying the reports, but now someone there has confirmed it to me. There’s really nothing to eat. The situation isn’t just getting worse every day — it’s getting worse every hour.”

According to Ukrainian officials, Russian troops in Oleshky are also short of food, so they have been taking it from civilians. Some residents have begun putting signs on their fences saying things like “No food here” or “Elderly people live here.”

Oleshky’s hospital has been called the city’s last refuge. It stayed open after pharmacies and stores closed. But conditions there are dire, too.

Residents weakened by malnutrition used to be taken to the local hospital, where staff fed them as best they could. Recently, the hospital, already operating at limited capacity, has all but stopped functioning. Staff can still stop bleeding, but there are no medicines or equipment, and there is not enough fuel for the generator. According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, the hospital has begun turning away civilian patients.

“The hospital is asking local people to bring whatever grains or anything else they have, so it can at least give bedridden amputees breakfast. It’s the only place people can still come to spend the night, because it doesn’t get shelled, and get a hot meal if someone cooks it off the generator. But things are critical there,” said volunteer Kseniia Arkhypova, who is from Oleshky and remains in contact with people there.

According to Arkhypova, Russian troops do not allow residents to bury the dead themselves because they “want to take the bodies to Henichesk for examination and produce a report saying the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot them.” Bodies awaiting burial used to be taken to the morgue, but it has since been destroyed, so they are kept in the hospital basement. “Everything’s leaking, and it stinks,” Arkhypova said, and bodies have been piling up since May. Some people quietly bury loved ones in their yards or gardens.

“The occupiers won’t allow the bodies of people killed [in shelling] to be released. There are about 100 bodies in the hospital basements. […] We know of cases where bodies are simply left lying under the scorching sun and no one removes them. At best, if someone knew the person who died, they might cover the body with branches or a piece of cloth,” Hasanenko told Suspilne.

More than a thousand people remain in Oleshky, including dozens of children. Few manage to leave.

Ukrainian volunteers estimate that about 1,500 people, including 40 children, still live in Oleshky. Another 4,000 people, including 150 children, live in nearby villages. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these communities had a combined population of 40,000.

People remain in the city for different reasons. Some are elderly or have limited mobility. Others feel they have nowhere to go. Some have no documents. To leave through occupied territory, they need a Russian passport, but getting one in Oleshky is impossible because the city is cut off by land and air. Russia refuses to open a humanitarian corridor to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Some men of draft age fear they will be sent into the Russian army if stopped at checkpoints. Some people cannot leave relatives behind in Oleshky. Others have no money or are simply afraid of being killed on the way out.

There is no organized evacuation from the city. Ukrainian officials say the Russian army does not want civilians to leave because their presence deters Ukrainian strikes. Meduza found no comments from the occupation authorities explaining why they have not arranged an evacuation.

In any case, under the Geneva Conventions, the occupying power is responsible for civilians in occupied territory. It is obliged to provide the population with food and medicine “to the fullest extent of the means available to it.”