The Ukrainian military carried out one of the largest humanitarian operations on the left bank of the Dnipro, which is controlled by Russia. Using drones, it dropped about 4,000 kg of food to 100 designated points in Russian-occupied Oleshky in the Kherson region. In the city, cut off from the world by the occupiers, about 2,000 people live today, including nearly 50 children. They have no food, water, or electricity.
Oleshky lies opposite Kherson. By water, it is only 9 kilometers. But Kherson is Ukrainian, and Oleshky has been under Russian occupation since the first day of the full-scale invasion. Before the war, about 24,000 people lived here.
Today the city is under blockade. It is impossible to leave it or enter it.
The only route for aid has become the sky.
Who delivered the food
The operation was carried out by several units at once. As reported by the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, the following took part: the 30th Marine Infantry Corps, the “Hrim” tactical group, the 34th Separate Marine Infantry Brigade “Borysfen”, the “Bolharychi” subunit of the 11th National Guard Brigade, the 34th National Guard Regiment, and the 79th Border Guard Detachment.
The food reached 100 designated points in the city simultaneously.
This was not the first such action. According to the Ukrainian authorities, food has been systematically delivered by drones across the Dnipro since March. This time, however, the scale was exceptional.
Residents received, among other things, bread, flour, yeast, canned food, cookies, crispbread, butter, and groats.
These are basic products. In Oleshky, for months they have been a luxury.
Russians hunt for packages
Aid is not reaching everyone. According to Prokudin, Russian soldiers shoot down drones carrying food, seize or resell products intended for children and the elderly.
Occupiers detain residents who collect humanitarian parcels, throw them into basements, brutally beat them and use violence against them.
In occupied Oleshky, Russians are holding about two thousand of our people hostage, including nearly five hundred children. They are forced to survive without food, electricity and water — wrote Oleksandr Prokudin.
A city cut off from the world for months
The last food delivery reached Oleshky on May 26. Since then, aid convoys have hit mines and perished under drone attacks.
The head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, appealed to the international community for urgent help. According to him, civilians are fighting to survive, eating grass and weeds.
Even Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov admitted that the situation in Oleshky is critical. However, he blamed Ukrainian drones.
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty called on September 25 for an immediate local ceasefire, access for humanitarian aid and the safe evacuation of civilians.
Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets had previously reported that the Russian side had blocked the humanitarian evacuation of residents.
This is not Oleshky’s first tragedy
Oleshky has been under Russian occupation since the first hour of the full-scale invasion, since February 24, 2022. In June 2023, after the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam was blown up, the city was almost completely flooded. Today, residents live under a blockade that Ukrainian human rights defenders and journalists call a “human safari”: Russian drones hunt civilians who go out for bread or water.
Today, those who survived the flood and the occupation are waiting for a package from the sky. The drone carrying it is sometimes their only contact with Ukraine.
Source: Nowiny Wschodnie / Kherson Regional Military Administration / Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine
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