In Russia-occupied Oleshky, Ukrainians face hunger, drones and landmines

Kyiv, Ukraine – On the day of her 41st wedding anniversary, Vera Gulyaeva recalled her husband’s life and death.

In March, a Russian drone plunged into a bread line in the southern Ukrainian town of Oleshky, killing several people and wounding Serhiy Gulyaev, a retired 63-year-old driver.

The town in the Kherson region had already been occupied for more than four years, and its 2,000 remaining residents spent the last two and a half years without electricity, running water, natural gas or healthcare.

The Gulyaevs, who had met at a friends’ wedding in 1985, lived in a small house they had built. They were reluctant to leave even after their children fled to Kyiv-controlled areas.

They had an orchid, a vegetable patch, five hens, a water well and a power generator that ran on the overpriced gas they occasionally bought from middlemen.

“I almost never left the house,” Gulyaeva, a stately 64-year-old retired schoolteacher told Al Jazeera. “The husband occasionally went out to buy bread.”

The bread-line attack left him with deep cranial wounds. She tried to get him to a hospital 80km (50 miles) away in the city of Skadovsk but failed as the ambulance ran over a landmine on the road.

Days later, a second attempt worked – but Gulyaev died in the hospital.

She recovered his remains, had them cremated and returned home with his ashes.

Now, she lives in western Ukraine with her daughter-in-law and two grandchildren while her son fights Russian forces.

Gulyaeva left behind all her family photos, friends and neighbours – several of whom have since died.

“People ate all of the food they’d stashed. People are starving,” Gulyaeva said of the food shortage stalking the town.

After four decades of teaching in the elementary school she had attended as a child, she still cannot fathom “how people can kill other people”.

Some residents survive on what they have farmed, stashed or found in abandoned apartments or houses. Others try to reach the nearest functioning grocery shop in the neighbouring village of Radensk, 20km (12.4 miles) away, to buy food.

But some never return.

A resident who fled the town but remains in contact with some residents told Al Jazeera that people have been killed by Russian drones or landmines. The bodies left out in the open are eaten by feral dogs.

On Thursday alone, there were four casualties. As they tried to get to Radensk, two people were killed and two were injured and brought back on a wheelbarrow and a bike.

“The choice that Russia leaves every day to civilian residents – stay and starve to death, leave and risk getting blown on a landmine,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, wrote on Telegram on Saturday.

European officials said the situation in Oleshky proves that Kyiv should not give in to Moscow’s demands to cede its land.

“When someone says: ‘Why don’t they just give up these territories?’ it sounds so simple. Right? But in reality, this is about the people who will suffer on those territories,” European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said on September 28.

Moscow, which has denied targeting civilians throughout the war, has acknowledged the humanitarian disaster but blamed Kyiv.

“There are, indeed, problems with delivering food and medical drugs [because] the Kyiv regime literally does everything to thwart these deliveries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed on September 20. “Drones always hover in the air, killing people.”

Pro-Russian figures in occupied areas support his claims.

“Those who wanted to leave have left. No one is being held here,” an anonymous pro-Russian woman who runs a Telegram channel on life in Oleshky wrote on September 28. “Unfortunately, locals are afraid to speak on camera” because they have relatives on the Ukrainian side, she claimed. “The elderly live under Ukrainian shelling but are afraid to talk.”

Her claims are a far cry from what Ukrainian officials say.

‘There’s nothing’

Most Oleshky residents eat once a day, according to Tetiana Khasanenko, Oleshky’s mayor, who fled to the Kyiv-controlled side but maintains constant contact with the remaining residents.

Some have found old, dried macaroni to sustain themselves. Some eat whatever they manage to grow next to their houses. And some resort to common purslane – a watery weed that contains next to no protein and can be eaten raw.

“There’s no flour, no meat, no oil, no sugar, no salt,” Hasanenko told Al Jazeera. “There’s nothing.”

She accused Russia of using the residents as human shields.

Russian soldiers are a constant threat in the town with no functioning civilian administration, she said.

They move into the remaining houses without permission and force the residents to feed them and find alcohol.

“They’re often on drugs,” Hasanenko claimed. “But they’re armed. They threaten.”

Oleshky is about 10km (6 miles) west of the regional capital, Kherson, but Russians blew up the 1,400-metre (1,530-yard) bridge over the Dnipro River, one of Europe’s largest, in November 2022 while retreating from the city.

The delivery of food and drugs is perilous and complicated.

The last attempts to get lifesaving cargo to Oleshky in cars were cut short by landmines and drone attacks.

Ukraine has managed to fly several tonnes of food on drones, but retrieving it is complicated.

Most survivors have left their war-damaged houses and apartment buildings to move to the buildings that are more or less intact.

And even if some people manage to charge their mobile phones and contact the Ukrainian side, they “don’t give exact geolocations because they’re afraid”, Hasanenko said.

“Because if there’s a food drop, Russian soldiers will punish them for it,” she said.

Knowing about the remaining residents’ daily ordeal, those who escaped are tormented with guilt.

“You don’t get any joy from life knowing that something like that is happening in our country,” Gulyeva said. “This is a huge tragedy.”