Food and medical supplies have been scarce for months in Oleshky, located on the Dnipro River that separates Ukrainian forces from the town. Russian occupiers. There is no electricity, no heating, no running water. The roads leading to the city are mined and strewn with burned cars. Menacing drones buzz above us.
One desperate resident watched the frontline town descend further into a humanitarian crisis as its trapped population dwindled to fewer than 2,000 people. She decided it was time to escape via what is known as “the road to death.”
So the 40-year-old former hairdresser walked – for 20 kilometers (12 miles), along the partially mined road – fearing that “each step could have been her last,” she said.
Oleshky, once a town of about 24,000 people, was captured by Moscow forces at the end of the war. first day of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Its buildings were bombed and burned and its infrastructure damaged. A new calamity struck in June 2023 when floodwaters inundated the city after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam following an explosion that an Associated Press investigation found was probably caused by the Russian army, which killed hundreds of residents.
And now those remaining in the battered city along Ukraine’s southeastern front risk dying of starvation or disease as another harsh winter looms, with no agreement in sight even for a humanitarian evacuation.
“There is nothing left for Oleshky,” said the woman, who fled in August and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety. “No food, no supplies, no medical care, no help of any kind. »
Both camps blame each other for the disaster. Russia says Ukraine is deliberately blocking supplies and evacuations; Kyiv retorts that Moscow is indeed holding civilians hostage.
Ukraine has repeatedly called for a local ceasefire to organize evacuations. Russia, which as the occupying power is required by international law to ensure that civilians under its control have what they need to survive, has made no commitments.
President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke about Olechky’s suffering at the hands of Russia on October 12 at an international forum in Poland, saying the town had been “razed to the ground.”
Ukraine is “trying to help these people, but they are under occupation,” he said. “Unblock the city of Oleshky and bring back our citizens.”
In a phone call Friday with President Vladimir Putin, Pope Leo XIV called for a ceasefire to allow deliveries of food and medicine to Oleshky and to safely evacuate civilians, the Vatican said. The Kremlin said Putin expressed support for the Vatican’s efforts to help protect the population and secure vital supplies, and expressed readiness to cooperate.
The morgue is overflowing with corpses
Remaining residents would forage for food among destroyed buildings or attempt to grow vegetables in gardens. Water is drawn from wells. Firewood is used for heating. Bodies in the city morgue are decomposing without electricity.
Another 100 bodies fill the basement of Olechky hospital, said Tetiana Hasanenko, the exiled head of the city’s Ukrainian military administration.
The UN human rights office said the last regular delivery of food by road was on May 26. Russian Olechky officials said this month they had delivered 2 tons of aid, although they admitted it was barely enough.
The U.N. office said Oleshky Hospital lacks basic medicines and supplies, drone attacks prevent ambulances from reaching patients and it is dangerous to take them elsewhere.
“It is impossible to live in Oleshky, there is no life there anymore,” said another resident who fled to Russian-controlled Mariupol and spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety.
Even Russian soldiers moved deeper into the occupied part of the Kherson region, further from the Dnipro, according to the former hairdresser. Moscow-appointed authorities appear to have “abandoned our cause a long time ago,” she said.
She considers herself lucky to have survived Oleshky’s journey to the village of Radensk, also occupied by Russia but further from the front line and therefore better off.
She said an acquaintance who tried to bring food to Oleshky was killed on the road when his car was shot at, adding that she saw a photo of him “covered in blood, with bread and chicken legs scattered around him.”
Hasanenko said the road from Oleshky to Radensk is known as “the road of death” because “dead bodies lie on this road and no one takes them away.” She cited an explosion this month that killed four people and left an 86-year-old man seriously injured.
Russian troops were driven out of the major city of Kherson across the Dnipro in 2022, but have mined roads around Olechky, said Lt. Yevhen Voronetskyi, a spokesman for Ukraine’s 34th separate marine brigade. kyiv’s drones also remotely mined forest paths used by Russian troops, he added.
Some evacuees who reach Radensk try to return to Olechky with food “because they have children waiting at home or elderly parents who are immobile,” Hasanenko said, saying at least 35 children remain there.
An evacuee helps others still stuck
Ksenia Arkhipova, who fled Oleshky in 2022 and is now helping others leave, said neighboring occupied towns and villages in an area along the Dnipro face similar dire conditions and mined roads.
It takes six to eight hours to walk or cycle from Oleshky to Radensk, she said, because evacuees may be older and weakened by hunger, or may have to wait out attacks or carry their bikes to avoid mines.
Traveling is only possible in dry weather, Arkhipova said, and “I am terrified of the coming winter, when many Oleshky residents will simply be doomed.”
Some of them don’t want to leave their homes or risk a dangerous trip, Voronetskyi said.
Agreement on evacuation remains elusive
Russia and Ukraine discussed a possible temporary ceasefire and a humanitarian corridor, but reached no agreement, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said. “As winter approaches, the issue is urgent,” he said.
While communications with Moscow continue, “Russia has not provided clear and verifiable guarantees to carry out a humanitarian operation,” according to the office of Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets.
Mined roads make evacuation impossible and not all residents want to leave, according to Russian officials in the city.
Vladimir Saldo, appointed by Moscow as governor of the occupied part of the Kherson region, promised earlier this month to help anyone wishing to leave the city. The former hairdresser told AP that residents repeatedly asked local authorities for a humanitarian corridor and submitted lists of those hoping to leave, but nothing came of it.
The International Committee of the Red Cross was ready to help with an evacuation, but only if both countries agreed and there were safety guarantees for civilians, ICRC spokeswoman Sarah Davies said.
Ukraine’s military says its drones are providing help
Voronetskyi, the Ukrainian lieutenant, said food shortages in Oleshky have persisted for months and are getting “worse and worse.”
His brigade has flown drones capable of carrying at least 20 kilograms (44 pounds) each over the Dnipro to the city with food aid for at least a year, he said, adding that more than 7 tons have been delivered since September.
The packages contained canned goods, ingredients for making bread, as well as buckwheat, rice, sugar and sweets for the children. as well as hygiene kits and medicines, including insulin, he said.
But Voronetskyi warned that these supplies were not intended to help people get through the winter but to help them “gather their strength, pack their things… and still try to leave Oleshky.”
Russia should “go in and get the people out,” he said. “No one will stop you.”
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Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia, and Arhirova, from Kyiv, Ukraine.
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