Before the full-scale invasion, Oleshky was a city of 40,000 people — an ordinary Ukrainian community on the left bank of the Dnipro River, just across the water from Kherson. Russia occupied it in the earliest days of the war. Then, in June 2023, Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Dam, flooding much of the city. While the waters rose, Russian forces reportedly prevented locals from leaving and later confiscated humanitarian aid. An Associated Press investigation found that the dam’s destruction killed at least hundreds in Oleshky alone — not the 59 Russia claimed for the entire region.
That catastrophe was only the beginning.
Today, roughly 6,000 to 8,000 people remain out of those 40,000. Most who could leave, did. Those who remain are the elderly, the immobile, families with nowhere to go. And they are trapped.
Since mid-January 2026, food has been delivered to the city exactly once. Every other attempt has ended the same way: volunteers and drivers killed under targeted drone attacks on roads that have become, in the words of the people who live there, “The Road of Death.” When a truck did break through in early January, there was a stampede. In fifteen minutes, everything was gone.
All roads are mined. The Russian military allows civilian vehicles to bring in food only in exchange for 80% of whatever they carry. Even then, getting through is close to impossible. In March 2026, the last functioning ambulance exploded on a mine on that same road.
Consider what happened on 5 March. Two vehicles managed to bring provisions into the city. Word spread quickly. By morning, a long line had formed outside the grocery store. Instead, four drones attacked the gathering, wounding ten people and killing two civilians. The wounded were transported to hospital in a wheelbarrow.
People queuing for bread. Attacked by drones.
Two to three people die in Oleshky every day — from malnutrition, heart attacks, shelling. Russian FPV drone operators use moving targets for training, including civilians, vehicles, and animals. Residents call it “human safari.” One elderly man was killed by occupiers when he tried to stop them looting food from his cellar.
The hospital treats only Russian military personnel. Ukrainian residents are turned away. The building has had no reliable power, water, or gas for years.
And there is Alyona. Her husband was injured by a Russian drone and sent home from hospital without medication. Back home without heat or power, she washed his bandages by hand with water melted from snow and boiled the last three potatoes on an outdoor fire. She called a cousin to say she wasn’t sure they would survive. By March, the cousin had heard nothing. She comforts herself with the knowledge that phones cannot be charged and communications are down.
There is also a woman counting her flour. She has enough for one more loaf. After that, a few frozen pumpkins. Some cereals. Whatever she can barter with neighbours who have equally little. She has not tasted dairy since December. She cooks on a wood-burning stove outside because there is nothing else. She is down to her last cup of flour, cooking on an open fire in the ruins of the life she used to have.
I have been a doctor for over thirty years. I have worked in difficult environments and seen suffering that stays with you. But some details from Oleshky stop me cold.
The dead are being buried in plastic bags. In the best case, a handwritten plaque marks the date of birth, date of death, and name. A man who died in December lay unburied for nearly two months before anyone came. The city morgue has had no electricity for four years. In mid-March, it was hit by a shell. Although it is full, Russian authorities do not permit burials. Along the road toward Crimea, bodies lie uncollected, consumed by stray dogs. People are afraid to stop and approach them — stopping means becoming a drone target yourself.
To deny someone a dignified burial is one of the oldest forms of dehumanisation. Russia is doing this systematically, deliberately, in 2026.
And then there is the deliberate erasure of identity — what journalist Zarina Zabrisky, reporting for Meidas+, documents as a parallel campaign running alongside the physical siege. Russian propaganda tells residents still in occupied territory that they are not welcome back in Ukraine. Fake Ukrainian leaflets dropped by drones threaten locals, calling them “collaborators.” Russian soldiers set up Ukrainian flags in the street and watch to see who reacts with sympathy — then arrest them.
One family was stopped at a checkpoint when soldiers found a deleted Ukrainian bank app on the husband’s phone. The couple was taken to their home, tied to chairs, and had needles pushed under their fingernails while soldiers accused them of funding the Ukrainian army.
Sexual violence is used as a tool of control. Multiple cases of rape by Russian military personnel have been documented, with some women giving birth following these assaults.
According to international humanitarian law — specifically Articles 55 and 59 of the Geneva Convention — an occupying power is obligated to provide the civilian population with food, water, and medical supplies, and to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid. Russia is the occupying power in Oleshky. Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has appealed to both the ICRC and Russia directly, calling for a humanitarian corridor. After nearly a month of appeals, the situation has not changed. Lubinets has been direct: this is not merely a humanitarian crisis. This is deliberate terrorism by the Russian Federation against the civilian population.
The Holodomor comparison is not hyperbole. It is history recognising itself.
So when Western politicians speak of “giving Russia something” to end the war, when commentators suggest that territorial concessions are the “pragmatic” path to peace, I want them to understand what they are asking Ukrainians to accept. Not inconvenience. Not reduced sovereignty in the abstract. This. Alyona melting snow to wash her husband’s bandages. Children choosing between starvation and a mined road. Bodies in plastic bags. People tortured for having a bank app on their phone.
The UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights has confirmed that evacuation from Oleshky is extremely difficult and dangerous, leaving many people trapped close to the frontline, with critical humanitarian needs going unmet. The international community’s silence is its own kind of verdict.
What can you do?
Speak up. Write to your local MP, your senator, your federal representative. Australia has a voice in the international conversation on Ukraine. Use yours. Ask your government to press for humanitarian corridors. Ask them to name what is happening in Oleshky for what it is: a war crime.
And if you can, please support our medical and humanitarian aid mission directly. Our partners on the ground in Ukraine work with people like this every day — those who have survived occupation and emerged with nothing: untreated wounds, unmanaged chronic conditions, no documents, no money, nowhere to go. Medicine, surgical supplies, evacuation support, and hands-on care delivered in conditions most of us cannot imagine. That is what your support makes possible.
The woman counting her last cup of flour is running out of time.
So is our window to make a difference.
Sources
Zarina Zabrisky, Besieged Oleshki: Humanitarian Collapse Under Russian Control, Meidas+, 26 March 2026 https://www.meidasplus.com/p/besieged-oleshki-humanitarian-collapse
Occupied Oleshky Faces Blockade: Civilians Die Trying To Bring Bread, Ukrinform via MENAFN, 25 February 2026 https://menafn.com/1110789968/Occupied-Oleshky-Faces-Blockade-Civilians-Die-Trying-To-Bring-Bread
In Occupied Oleshky, No One Left To Bury Dead, Ukrinform via MENAFN, 25 February 2026 https://menafn.com/1110788736/In-Occupied-Oleshky-No-One-Left-To-Bury-Dead
Lubinets calls for humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians from Oleshky, Ukrinform, 28 March 2026 https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/4106423-lubinets-calls-for-humanitarian-corridor-to-evacuate-civilians-from-oleshky.html
Ombudsman declares humanitarian catastrophe in Oleshky, Intent Press, 28 March 2026 https://intent.press/en/news/war/2026/oleshky-on-the-verge-of-survival-ombudsman-declares-humanitarian-catastrophe/
Residents of occupied Kherson region die of hunger, Intent Press, 25 March 2026 https://intent.press/en/news/society/2026/occupants-blockade-a-town-in-kherson-region-residents-are-dying-of-hunger/
Due to the blockade of Oleshky, attempts to bring in food end in death, Intent Press, 26 February 2026 https://intent.press/en/news/war/2026/due-to-the-blockade-of-oleshky-attempts-to-bring-in-food-end-in-death/
Occupied communities in Kherson region are under humanitarian blockade, Intent Press, 5 March 2026 https://intent.press/en/news/society/2026/occupied-communities-in-kherson-region-are-under-humanitarian-blockade/
In Oleshky, more than 8,000 people still live: humanitarian catastrophe continues, Most Kherson, 22 March 2026 https://most.ks.ua/en/news/url/v-oleshkah-dosi-meshkaje-ponad-8000-ljudej-v-misti-trivaje-gumanitarna-katastrofa-tolokonnikov/
Bodies remain uncollected on roadsides in temporarily occupied Oleshky, Most Kherson, 25 March 2026 https://most.ks.ua/en/news/url/v-okupovanih-oleshkah-cherez-vidsutnist-trun-ljudej-hovajut-u-paketah-mipl/
Ukraine: danger is only increasing, warns UN human rights office, UN News, 26 March 2026 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167201
Some villages in occupied Kherson Oblast ‘no longer exist,’ official says, Kyiv Independent https://kyivindependent.com/some-villages-no-longer-exist-in-occupied-kherson/
