Oleshky, a town of roughly 6,000 people on the occupied left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson region, is approaching famine. Food deliveries ceased at the end of May. Residents trade eggs for sugar at barter rates and pay 1,000 rubles — about €10 — for a single kilogram of zucchini. The head of the exiled Ukrainian city military administration, Tetiana Hasanenko, says the word starvation is insufficient: "You can't just call this starvation — it's a famine." The town has been under Russian occupation since February 2022 and was devastated further in June 2023 when the Kakhovka Dam breach flooded it almost entirely, destroying food stores in basements and wrecking infrastructure. Residents now live without electricity, gas, or running water, drawing from wells. The last supply lifeline — minibuses running south to Skadovsk — collapsed after drone strikes destroyed the vehicles, and two replacement ambulances stopped running after a driver was killed. Daily life is structured around scarcity. A resident identified as Halyna described her lunch: a flatbread of water and flour topped with apple sauce, with tea and no sugar. People venture out only between 7 and 9 a.m. to trade at the market square. Those who need food now walk or cycle 20 kilometers to the village of Radensk. Those who want to leave face another 20-kilometer trek to Tarasivka through heavily mined terrain. Two women died attempting this route recently. Medical infrastructure has effectively collapsed. A surgeon remains at the hospital, but there is no anesthesiologist and no medicine. "If your leg is blown off, you're as good as dead," Halyna told DW. Inpatient meals have deteriorated from soup and bread to a spoonful and a half of semolina cooked in water. Among the 6,000 remaining residents are 180 children. Evacuation has been discussed since spring. Ukraine's parliamentary human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, compiled a list of 358 people needing urgent extraction and posted it publicly, calling Oleshky "a death trap." Preliminary agreements were reached between Kyiv and Moscow, with Ukraine's military promising a ceasefire and the International Committee of the Red Cross offering logistical support. Russia, however, "has not reaffirmed its willingness" to proceed, according to Lubinets. The structural dynamics are clear. An occupied population cannot reach Ukrainian-controlled territory. The occupying power controls all exit routes and has failed to maintain even minimal supply lines. The only solution — a negotiated green corridor — requires Russian cooperation that has not materialized. Moscow holds the chokepoint and bears the obligation under international humanitarian law to provide for the civilian population it occupies. That obligation is unfulfilled. Oleshky is not a battlefield story. It is a siege-by-neglect story. The extraction is not of resources but of agency: 6,000 people stripped of the ability to feed themselves, heal themselves, or leave. Every week without a corridor is a policy choice, and the cost is measured in calories, untreated injuries, and lives.
