Oleshki - a Ukrainian town cut off from the world: People live in inhumane conditions, there is no electricity, no water...

In Oleshki, an occupied Ukrainian town, residents are cut off from the outside world and live in inhumane conditions. They lack electricity, water, medicine and food, and their evacuation is extremely difficult.

The situation in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshkiv has become critical. After the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in southern Ukraine in 2023, the town was flooded and then bombed, and today it is practically cut off from the outside world. However, according to the Ukrainian military administration, between 1.500 and 2.000 people, mostly pensioners and people with limited mobility, as well as 47 children, still live there.

Before the Russian invasion, the city had a population of 24.000. The city had a well-developed infrastructure and was a popular holiday destination. It serves as the administrative center of the Oleshki community in the Kherson region, which consists of a total of 13 settlements. During the Russian occupation, five villages belonging to the city, Krynki, Pidstepne, Pischanivka and Sahi, were completely destroyed, while the remaining villages are still inhabited.

How Oleški turned into a trap

Today, it is almost impossible to leave Oleshki. The city itself, along with all access roads, has been mined by the Russian army. The Antonivka Bridge was blown up by the Russians in November 2022, during their retreat from the right to the left bank of the Dnieper River. The bridge once connected Oleshki with the regional capital Kherson.

In Oleški, people are dying from mines, direct attacks on houses or shrapnel, Kseniya Arkhipova, who lived there herself and is now helping to evacuate people from the area, tells Deutsche Welle (DW). She explains that the hospital is powered by generators, but there is practically no fuel, which makes complex surgeries, such as amputations after mine injuries, impossible.

This is confirmed by Nataliya, who lived under Russian occupation for a year and a half and left Oleshki after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam. She points out that people are barely surviving because they have no electricity or water. Medicines are almost never delivered, and food arrives very rarely. When it does arrive, everyone stands in long lines to buy at least something, even though they have almost no money. The mines placed along the road explode when a cyclist or pedestrian passes by, which is how many people have been killed, Nataliya tells DW.

There are still some of her relatives and acquaintances in the city with whom she maintains contact, because Oleshki, due to its proximity to the city of Kherson, is within range of the Ukrainian mobile network. According to her, people use solar panels left in partially destroyed houses to charge their mobile phones. However, Nataliya warns that this communication is extremely dangerous, because Ukrainian SIM cards are banned in the occupied territories, as is any contact with the Ukrainian side.

Kyiv demands the establishment of humanitarian corridors

Last winter, Oleshki was further isolated. The mining of roads reached such a scale that many private traders who transported food from the occupied territories to the city stopped coming for fear of their lives. This led to an almost complete collapse of the food supply in February, as Tetyana Hasanenko from the Ukrainian military administration in the Kherson region told DW.

In March, the city was virtually starving, as there was almost no food from mid-January to February. It was not until May 4 that a truck with food arrived in Oleški, but there were no subsequent deliveries. People were forced to cook over open fires due to the lack of electricity, says Hasanenko.

According to her, Kiev wants to save these people, and various institutions are involved in these efforts, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Commissioner for Human Rights, and international humanitarian organizations. The establishment of humanitarian corridors is currently being discussed, but Hasanenko admits that the implementation of such measures does not depend solely on Ukraine. She claims that Russia is using the civilian population there as human shields and emphasizes that they are dealing with Russian war criminals, and that a humanitarian corridor would be possible only under the supervision of international missions, such as the United Nations, the Red Cross, or other organizations.

Difficult to reach an agreement with Moscow

Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinec describes the situation as a humanitarian catastrophe, with insufficient food, medicine and drinking water. In early March, he received calls for help from residents of the occupied city, which prompted him to contact the International Committee of the Red Cross. At the same time, he spoke with Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova.

According to Lubinec, the International Committee of the Red Cross agreed in late April to provide the necessary number of buses to facilitate the evacuation of people, but he has yet to receive approval from the Russian side. He suggested to the Russian side that the evacuation of the city be carried out during the ceasefire period from 9 to 11 May, but received no response. He also offered to travel there personally to make it known that a representative of the Ukrainian authorities was present in the evacuation convoy and that the Ukrainian side was respecting the ceasefire, and that this would be further negotiated.

Ukraine seeks international assistance

Meanwhile, Ukraine's human rights commissioner is trying to draw the international community's attention to the situation in Oleshkiv. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced that Kiev intends to discuss with the United Nations and the OSCE the precarious humanitarian situation in Oleshkiv and other locations in the occupied part of the Kherson region. The international community is called upon to take concrete and urgent measures to save citizens in the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

DW asked the International Committee of the Red Cross for a statement on the measures being taken regarding the evacuation of the population. Spokesperson for the organization, Oksana Kohan, said that their organization is aware of the reports regarding the situation in Oleshki and the surrounding villages, and that they can confirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross is currently in dialogue with the relevant authorities on both sides on this issue. She added that through the program for the safe movement of civilians, the organization continues to support family reunification in vulnerable areas on both sides of the front line in direct cooperation with the relevant authorities.

Finding safe evacuation routes

While the authorities negotiate evacuation corridors from Oleshki, residents are trying to leave the city on their own initiative. Kseniya Arkhipova helps them with this and explains that, in order to reach them, they check for mines every hundred meters, and only then do the drivers pass by, and so they progress step by step. They evacuate between seven and twelve people every week.

Their work is financially supported by the humanitarian organization "Save Ukraine". Arkhipova reports that people are first transferred to Skadovsk, which is under Russian occupation, and then transported across Russian territory to the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. She notes that this is currently the safest way to leave the occupied territories and reach the area controlled by Kiev.

However, only those with identification documents can leave this way, Arkhipova emphasizes. Those who are left without documents must wait for the occupation authorities to issue them new ones. People without documents, who have been left with nothing, cannot pass through checkpoints, so she advises them to take Russian passports just so they can leave the area. However, the Russians require them to confirm their identity with the testimony of three neighbors, and Arkhipova wonders where they will find them.

According to her, such individuals initially stay in Skadovsk. Leaving these territories is also difficult for families with children, because the children must first be issued Russian passports, and they are also forced to wait for months for them to be issued in Skadovsk. Anyone leaving with a Ukrainian passport must endure grueling inspections lasting six to seven hours, where they are subjected to a physical examination and must strip naked, concludes evacuation coordinator Ksenia Arkhipova.