Besieged Oleshki: Humanitarian Collapse Under Russian Control

Guest article by Zarina Zabrisky, Meidas Defense’s Kherson-based correspondent

Humanitarian Crisis: Hunger and the Siege

In January 2026, in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, Alyona’s husband was injured by a Russian drone and briefly admitted to the hospital before being sent home without medication. The facility lacked medical supplies, running water, gas, and electricity, and the generator fuel had run out. Back home, without heat or power, Alyona washed bandages by hand with water melted from snow and boiled the last three potatoes on the fire outdoors. Her phone running low on battery, she called a cousin and said she was uncertain whether they would survive. By March, her cousin had still heard nothing and comforts herself with the knowledge that phones cannot be charged and communication lines are down. Her concern is heightened by reports that residents across the occupied Kherson region are dying from starvation, cold, and attacks by shelling and drones.

“Today, in the temporarily occupied Oleshki, about two thousand people, including fifty children, are forced to survive in conditions reminiscent of the Holodomor of 1932-1933,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, in an interview with Meidas Defense. “The Russian military has driven the city into a blockade. People have no food, medicine, fuel, or electricity. There is no food supply or evacuation. People are faced with a terrible choice: to wait for death by starvation or to walk miles along mined roads in search of a piece of bread, at the risk of shelling.”

According to residents who spoke to Meidas Defense on condition of anonymity out of security considerations, the besieged city of Oleshki in the Russian-occupied Ukraine is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. At least six eyewitnesses confirmed that food supplies are nearly exhausted. The market is destroyed, and shops are closed. A large food market in the nearby village of Kopani was closed due to the drone attacks. Humanitarian aid deliveries stopped.

Tetyana Hasanenko, the head of the Oleshki City Military Administration, based in the de-occupied territory after escaping from the Russian-occupied Kherson region, collects the evidence of the Russian war crimes, finding the limited opportunities to speak to neighbors, acquaintances, chats, and telegram channels.

https://www.meidasplus.com/p/besieged-oleshki-humanitarian-collapse