Russia starving occupied Oleshky near Kherson and blocking residents from leaving
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The town of Oleshky has been surrounded by Russian troops for several months (Photo: Video screenshot / 124th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine / Facebook)
The town of Oleshky in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast is under a humanitarian blockade, with no food deliveries since late May, residents going hungry, and Russian forces preventing people from leaving, the German newspaper Bild reported on Sept. 16.
According to the report, between 2,000 and 4,000 people remain in Oleshky.
Residents told Bild they survived the summer on vegetables from their own gardens, but with the growing season now ending they face the threat of hunger.
Oleshky lies only about four kilometers from Kherson, but the distance has become impossible to cross because Russian troops have surrounded the town for months, the paper wrote.
Russian soldiers do not allow vehicles carrying food to enter, and turn residents back at checkpoints.
“Go back and die there,” Bild quoted them as saying.
The newspaper said that when Russian forces attacked a humanitarian convoy, people immediately grabbed whatever food remained after the strike.
“Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin indifferently watches as the noose tightens around Oleshky and its residents,” Bild wrote.
Ukrainian authorities and international organizations are trying to negotiate an evacuation of the town, but according to Ukraine’s National Resistance Center, Russian forces are using the humanitarian crisis for propaganda.
They claim it is the Ukrainian military that is not allowing aid deliveries and in that way are trying to shift responsibility for the consequences of the occupation onto Ukraine.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said that as of June 24 no food deliveries had reached occupied Oleshky since May 26.
Locals had also reported constant drone attacks and mined areas that make evacuation and access to basic resources impossible.
On May 6, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said the humanitarian situation had sharply worsened in some occupied parts of Kherson Oblast because of Russian actions that violate international law. Critical infrastructure there had effectively been destroyed, and electricity and gas supplies were absent.
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