Oleshky Starving: The Human Cost of Territorial Concessions

Speaking at the YES Forum in Kyiv on Sept. 12, Jared Kushner, special envoy to US President Donald Trump, called Ukraine’s refusal to cede territory to Russia the principal obstacle to peace. For Ukrainians under Russian occupation, ceding territory means living under the regime that is starving them, denying them medicine, hunting them with drones, executing them and leaving their dead unburied. In Russian-occupied Oleshky and surrounding coastal areas of the Kherson region, the reality is worse than Bucha.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Oleshky humanitarian catastrophe Oksana (names have been changed for safety), who escaped Oleshky and is based in the Ukrainian-controlled territory, speaks to her parents only via text messages. The connection is sporadic, sometimes appearing for just two minutes a day, and she hears from her mother and father only every few days. Russians block all transport from entering Oleshky, and all roads and streets are mined. The last food delivery took place in May 28, 2026. In early September, a convoy delivering food supplies was destroyed by FPV drones. “It’s early fall now, so my parents and their neighbors still survive on their garden’s produce,” said Oksana. “All summer, people relied on barter. My parents exchanged potatoes and vegetables for eggs and dried whatever bread they had to have crackers for winter. Flour was in high demand, but as time passed, all stocks were exhausted. There is no meat, fish, or any protein.” Other Topics of Interest 4 Years Since the Discovery of the Izyum Mass Graves Four years after Ukrainian forces uncovered the Izyum mass graves, prosecutors have identified 15 suspects in the killings, while international efforts to document the atrocities continue despite the loss of U.S. funding for a key Yale-led research projec Alya, another Oleshky resident, confirmed the situation in a written interview, and added that she has survived drinking water with honey. Russian occupying forces do not provide any food to residents, including the elderly and children. As reported by other residents of Oleshky and confirmed by the intercepted Russian communication, Russian soldiers are suffering from the lack of food and rob the scarce supplies of Ukrainians, threatening to kill those who refuse to give them food. Pets and farm animals perish of hunger. Oleshky has been without grid electricity for years. Before the current drone and mine siege, which began in December 2025, the city survived on generators. Now, because fuel deliveries are impossible, the generators no longer function. As a result, water pumps cannot operate. In winter, Oleshky residents heated private houses using the firewood prepared at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Walking to the woods is currently not an option due to the mined roads and drone surveillance. High-rise buildings remained without heating, and over the course of the last winter, deaths due to freezing were reported. The financial situation is critical. Ukrainian pensions are not available, and Russian pensions are not being paid. Credit and debit cards are blocked, and there are no facilities to get cash. Oksana’s mother and father both suffered from strokes but cannot obtain any medical help as the only hospital in town ran out of medications. Many patients are still staying at the hospital, hoping for evacuation and treatment outside of Olehsky. “It is horror,” said Oksana. “People are forced to live in slavery. This is a crisis. Everyone is on the edge, waiting for help.” Fatality numbers are high but the exact data is not available since Russian authorities do not provide any information. Oksana said that Russian military executed a family she knew as they were trying to escape. A husband and son died, and the wife was wounded. In the beginning of summer, Russians shot and killed another married couple Oksana knew well. Oksana’s parents and other residents constantly see wounded and deceased transported in wheelbarrows. Bodies are left unburied on the roads for weeks. When transported to a makeshift morgue that does not have any refrigeration due to the lack of power, bodies are not buried for three months or longer. Death certificates are not issued, and coffins are not available. Alya added that Russians only allow for burying the elderly who died of illness or age. Those killed by mine blast injuries, drones or artillery are due to undergo an examination prior to being buried, but as the examination is conducted outside of Oleshky, the bodies cannot be removed. Walking in Oleshky is risky due to the mine and drone siege. Public transportation is long gone. The roads are lined with burned vehicles. “Everything is mined,” said Oksana. “Even crossing the street is a luxury.” Drones are everywhere. Even though the majority of the population is elderly or disabled, people run as they hear drones. Most people do not leave their homes. Children still left in Olehsky are kept inside, mostly in basements. “I lived under occupation for six months, and no one ever stepped outside,” said Oksana. “Everyone was terribly afraid of Russians. They’ve installed their artillery and other weapons right by houses. One was just behind my home. They stored ammunition in residential houses. From these positions, they attacked Kherson.” Many residents of Oleshky, like other Ukrainian civilians in the occupied Kherson region, hoped to be liberated after the regional center, Kherson city, was recaptured by the Ukrainian military in November 2022. In June 2023, the area was devastated by the aftermath of the Nova Kakhovka dam explosion. Thousands went missing; the exact number of casualties is still unknown. Many Ukrainians have lost all belongings, including passports and other documents, destroyed by water. Russians do not allow evacuation without documents, as Ksenia Arkhipova, a volunteer attempting to evacuate Ukrainians from the occupied territories, confirmed in an interview. The closest administrative office is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) away and not accessible due to the drone-and-mine siege and the lack of fuel. “People are begging for evacuation, but Russians don’t let them go,” said Oksana. “This is a dire violation of human rights.” A warning against ceding occupied territory: ‘Not just lines on a map’ Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, commenting on the situation on X on Sept. 13, confirmed that Russia has trapped civilians in Olehsky without access to food, medicine, or necessities. Sybiha called the crisis in the occupied Kherson region “a Russian-inflicted humanitarian crisis in the middle of Europe.” He stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, all partners and relevant international organizations, “worked on urging joint efforts to secure immediate access to Oleshky and surrounding areas, as well as to establish humanitarian corridors.” While Sybiha did not comment directly on Jared Kushner’s statement regarding ceding the occupied territories at the YES Forum in Kyiv, he noted that Oleshky was “a grim reminder of reality for anyone who speaks casually about leaving Ukrainian territories under Russian occupation.” He wrote that occupied territories and borders are “not just lines on a map at a negotiating table.” “Real people live there, and their daily existence is determined by an occupying power that has already shown how it treats Ukrainians under its control. The situation in Oleshky is a warning against normalizing occupation. Any serious discussion about peace must account for the people whose lives and fundamental rights are at stake.” Sybiha thanked Anne Applebaum, an award-winning American journalist, historian, and the author of “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” and the world-leading expert on Holodomor, a man-made famine in Ukraine, formally recognized as an act of genocide by 35 countries, for bringing attention to the critical situation. “People are now dying of hunger in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Another mass famine, carried out by another cruel regime,” wrote Applebaum about the humanitarian catastrophe in Oleshky and surrounding areas of the Russian-occupied Kherson region. A territorial concession is not merely the transfer of land. It is the transfer of people to the control of an occupying regime that is already starving civilians, denying them medical care, restricting their movement, hunting them with drones and leaving their dead without burial. Any government advocating territorial concessions must confront that reality. For the people of Oleshky, the cost of a line drawn on a negotiating map is measured in hunger, death and continued Russian occupation. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.