Residents of occupied Oleshky on the left bank of the Dnipro, along with Ukrainian officials and volunteers, say the city is facing an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Tetiana Hasanenko, head of the city’s military administration, said on March 20 that about 2,000 people remain there, including 47 children. According to her, people lack sufficient access to food, medical care, and safe evacuation.
In early March, ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and to Russian ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova, demanding a humanitarian corridor. On March 27, he wrote that the city faced an acute shortage of drinking water, unstable electricity and gas supplies, and that attempts to deliver food were costing drivers their lives. By late April, the publication’s sources said, there had been no visible response.
Halyna, a 65-year-old resident who left in March 2026, said she managed to escape only after her husband’s death and at a cost of 35,000 hryvnias. She described a winter without power or gas, when people burned furniture, books, and trees for heat, and after supplies stopped, exchanged their remaining potatoes, grains, and canned food.
According to local residents and volunteer Ksenia Arkhipova, roads to the city are mined and targeted by drones, shops are closed, and the bodies of the dead sometimes remain unburied for long periods. Arkhipova also reported explosions and attacks on vehicles carrying bread, medicine, fuel, and pensions into Oleshky. In early April, she said, a 14-year-old boy was wounded after stepping on a “petal” mine.
“People are surviving. They are not living — they are simply surviving,” Arkhipova said of those still in the city.
Vladimir Saldo, the head of the occupation administration, rejects the term “humanitarian catastrophe” and claims that deliveries of goods continue, though with interruptions because of the fighting. The outlet said it found no other public comments from Russian officials on the situation in Oleshky.