The situation is serious in the city of Olesky in southern Ukraine. When the nearby Kakhovka Dam was destroyed in 2023, Oleshki was first flooded and then bombed. Today, it is practically cut off from the outside world. But according to the Oleski military administration, 2,000 people still live there, they are mostly pensioners and persons with limited mobility – but also reportedly about 50 children.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Oleshki had 24,000 inhabitants and was located in a popular leisure area. According to officials, five out of 13 areas in the district have been completely destroyed. But people continue to live in the surrounding area.
How Oleski became a trap
It has become almost impossible to leave Oleski. The town and all access roads have been mined by the Russian military. Previously, the Antonivka Road Bridge over the Dnipro River connected Oleshki with the regional capital Kherson, which remains controlled by Ukraine. But the bridge no longer exists. It was blown up by the Russians in November 2022, when they retreated from the right bank of the river and deployed on the left bank.
“People in Oleski are dying because of landmines, direct attacks on their homes or shrapnel,” Ksenia Arkhipova, a former resident of Oleski who is currently helping people evacuate on a regular basis, told DW. “The hospital is powered by generators, but there is practically no fuel. Complex operations like amputating limbs are impossible after mine explosions,” he said.
This was also confirmed by Natalia, who lived under Russian occupation for about 18 months before leaving after the demolition of the Kakhovka Dam. Natalia told DW, “People can barely survive, they have no access to electricity or water. There are virtually no medicine supplies, there is a shortage of groceries, and if there is anything, everyone is standing in long lines to buy something, even though they have very little money. The roadsides are littered with landmines that can explode if cyclists or pedestrians pass by. This is how many people are dying.”
She said that she still has relatives and acquaintances in the city with whom she keeps in touch – due to proximity to Kherson, Oleshkiy is within the scope of Ukraine’s mobile phone network. She said that it was too dangerous for Oleski’s people to talk with her and other people from non-occupied Ukraine, as Ukrainian SIM cards and any contact with Ukrainians are banned in the Russian-occupied territories. But people continued to take risks and use solar panels from partially destroyed buildings to charge their old mobile phones.
Kyiv calls for humanitarian corridors
Already isolated, the situation became even worse for the people in Oleski last winter. The number of landmines on the roads reached such levels that many of those carrying food supplies from other occupied areas to the city stopped doing so in fear of their lives. This led to an almost complete cessation of food provisions in February, Tetyana Hasanenko, head of the Olesky military administration in the Kherson region, told DW.
Hasanenko said, “From March, there was effectively a famine in Oleski, as there was almost no food available from mid-January to February. On May 4, a truck carrying supplies arrived in Oleski, but after that there were no further deliveries. People have no electricity, they have to cook over open fires, fridges are not working.”
He said now Kiev wants to help save the remaining residents of Oleski. Various authorities are involved in the evacuation efforts, including the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, the Human Rights Commissioner of Ukraine, and international aid organizations. He said humanitarian corridors are being discussed, but their establishment is not dependent solely on Ukraine and that Russia is currently using the citizens of Oleshki as human shields. He said, “We are dealing with Russian war criminals. A humanitarian corridor would be possible only under the supervision of international missions – the United Nations, the Red Cross or other organizations.”
Moscow will not accept the ceasefire
Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets described the situation as a “humanitarian disaster”. “There is not enough food, medicine and drinking water,” he told DW. In early March, he said, he received calls for help from residents of the occupied city, after which he turned to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Along with this, he also talked to his Russian counterpart Tatyana Moskalkova at that time.
According to Lubinets, the ICRC announced in late April that it was ready to supply as many buses as would be needed to evacuate the people of Oleski. Ukrainian media outlets quoted Lubinets as saying that Ukrainian authorities had then coordinated the technical details of a possible evacuation from Oleshki and other localities on the left bank of the Dnieper. In total, there are about 6,000 civilians, including 200 children, who are waiting to leave the area. Currently, Kiev is waiting for Moscow to confirm the ceasefire date so that the evacuation can begin.
Ukraine asked for international help
Meanwhile, Lubinets is trying to draw the international community’s attention to Oleski’s situation. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has also announced that Kyiv intends to raise the precarious humanitarian situation with the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). “We urge the international community to take immediate, concrete action to rescue our civilians in the occupied Kherson region,” he said. the ministry said in a statement.
Evacuation routes are being searched
Some people have taken matters into their own hands and are trying to get out of there themselves. Archipova is helping: “To reach them, we move forward 100 meters (109 yards) at a time, checking the area for mines, before completely evacuating the vehicle, and that’s how we move step by step. Every week, we evacuate seven to 12 people,” she said, adding that financial support had been received from the Ukrainian aid organization Save Ukraine. Arkhipova reported that people were initially taken to the Russian-occupied city of Skadovsk and then through Russia to the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. This was the safest way to leave the territories currently occupied by Russia and reach Kiev-controlled territory.
“However, only people with ID can leave Olesky on that route,” Arkhipova stressed. Those who don’t have something or have lost it will have to wait for occupiers to issue replacements, he said. “People without documents, whose entire belongings were burned during the attacks, are unable to pass through the checkpoints. So I advise them to get Russian passports, so they will be able to escape. However, for this, the Russians demand that three neighbors verify their identity. How will they find them?”
In the meantime, therefore, many people remain in Skadovsk. For example, families with children who are also waiting for a Russian passport.
And for those who have only Ukrainian papers, it has become almost impossible to leave Russian-controlled areas. “People who try to endure a terrible investigation that lasts six to seven hours,” Arkhipova said.
Russian occupation authorities have systematically increased barriers to people without Russian citizenship, leaving only Ukrainian document holders largely stranded.
This article was originally published in Ukrainian.