“Two more civilians died last night,” says Halia, before her phone connection cuts off. She is trapped in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky, which she says is “constantly shelled” and cut off from food and water. Three days later she tells me the two who were killed were a husband and wife. She knew them well.
They were bringing home a bag of food from the closest neighbouring town of Radensk, 23km (14 miles) away, but were unable to get home before a curfew imposed by Russian occupation authorities. They were then killed by a drone. Four separate sources have confirmed the deaths of two civilians carrying food on 20 September. Halia does not want to share their names for fear she might be identified.
Her name has been changed to protect her safety. Hers is just one of the many harrowing accounts the BBC has heard from residents in the front-line city in southern Kherson in recent days. Occupied by Russia since 2022, Oleshky is trapped between the Dnipro River, which separates it from Ukrainian positions, and Russian forces. It is also one of the cities where thousands of people lost their homes after the collapse of Nova Khakova Dam in 2023, flooding buildings up to their rooftops.
Ukraine and Nato accused Russia of blowing up the dam, while Russia blamed Ukraine. Oleshky was home to 24,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Now the Ukrainian government estimates that some 6,000 people remain in the city and its surrounding areas, including 200 children. Residents say children remaining in wider Oleshky are suffering from malnutrition, a lack of medical services, and are “degrading” without access to education.
Many have also told the BBC independently there is only one hospital partially operational, opening a few days a week to perform critical amputations. Ukraine has attempted to deliver supplies to the area but has not had success in recent months. To stay or risk the ‘Road of Death’ – Ukrainian civilians trapped in frontline city Earlier this week the Kremlin acknowledged that Oleshky faced “a critical situation” and “problems with supplies of food and medicine”, but added that “Russia’s military was working to resolve them” and blamed Kyiv. The local population is living under a “full blockade” by Russian forces, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Sybiha called on the international community to pressure Russia into allowing humanitarian aid into the city. Inside Oleshky, Halia faces a daily struggle to survive. “There is no food here in the city,” she says, adding that the last food delivery was back in May. “I eat once a day, a dinner only,” she says.
“I make some plain bread, sometimes I can have it with a tomato, or with some honey, and a tea. That’s it.” Many residents have turned to cooking garden weeds as they have run out of the vegetables they managed to grow over the summer, she explains. Which weeds are safe to eat and how to boil them has become a topic of discussion on local Telegram messaging chats, along with calls between residents to sell, swap or share pieces of food. No shops are open any more in Oleshky, with residents unable to source either clothes or hygiene products.
The city has had no electricity, gas or water since the Kakhovka dam was attacked three years ago. While some residents have risked travelling on foot along mined roads out of the city in search of supplies, it is now deemed too much of a danger. Warning: Distressing and graphic descriptions of dead bodies below. Working out how many people have been killed in Oleshky is difficult.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded reports this year of at least 29 civilians killed and 54 injured in Oleshky and Hola Prystan, external – about 24km to the east. Local volunteers estimate that number could be significantly higher. Ksenia Arkhipova has been counting the dead since she managed to escape Oleshky in summer 2022 – a few months after it was taken by the Russian army. She is a volunteer who is involved in attempts to deliver food and medicine and facilitating evacuations to Oleshky.
Locals trust her with their sensitive personal information. “I’ve been putting together a spreadsheet of all those who died as soon as I find out about it, with their names and dates of birth – I’ve got around 1,200 people now,” she says. “Sometimes I don’t have time to update it, as the list grows one or two people longer every day: someone was killed by a drone, someone else stepped on the landmine.” While the BBC cannot independently verify these figures, one local resident has given her personal account of losing her loved ones. Both her parents were killed in Oleshky this summer, said Tetiana – also not her real name.
She confirmed their identities to the BBC with their dates of birth and photos, but asked not to have them published for her own safety. “They were shot inside their home. Russian soldiers came there and wanted to take it,” she said. Largest attack on Moscow sees Ukraine fire hundreds of drones, mayor says A four-minute warning isn’t enough: Russia’s new relentless missile tactics exhaust Kyiv residents Russia hits Ukrainian train shortly after Boris Johnson and top European officials leave station Burying the bodies of people killed in Oleshky has been restricted by Russian occupation authorities, residents say.
This has made counting the dead even harder. They “do not allow us to bury the dead if they were killed by a drone, stepped on a landmine or were killed in any other way”, said Tetiana. Russia’s occupation authorities demand those deaths are confirmed by post mortem examination carried out by a Russian doctor, the BBC has been told. That is not possible in Oleshky.
Only those who die of natural causes could be buried, she added, and as a result, “some bodies have been on the streets since December”. Bodies are “either getting piled” up in the local hospital morgue, “where there’s been no power since winter”, says volunteer Ksenia Arkhipova, or “stray dogs eat them”. That detail has been verified by the BBC based on numerous pictures obtained from residents. They are all too graphic to publish.
“This is a tool of psychological pressure,” says Ester Vrataryova, the co-founder of charity Humanity, which helps people in Oleshky and the wider Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. “If you try to bury a dead body, you’ll become the next one,” she says.
