Oleshky has received no food supplies since late May and residents have resorted to eating dogs

Tetiana Hasanenko, Head of Oleshky City Military Administration, has said that food was last officially delivered to the town of Oleshky on 26 May and that there are now cases of families eating dogs.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda article "Oleshky under siege: The city where people eat grass, store bodies in hospital basement and wait for evacuation that never comes" (English translation coming soon)

Quote from Hasanenko: "A few days ago, for the first time, I heard that there really are cases now where some families are eating dogs. A week earlier, I had denied such reports, but now someone from there has confirmed it to me. There is simply nothing to eat. The situation is not just getting worse by the day, it is deteriorating by the hour.

And there is no chance of rescue. People have two options: either die of hunger or be hit by a drone or artillery fire and killed. There is no third option. The chances of staying there without food and surviving are zero."

Details: Hasanenko said this is not a situation in which some families in the city have food while others do not. Hunger is affecting everyone in the city.

The last food delivery to Oleshky took place on 26 May. No subsequent attempt has succeeded.

Hasanenko said that in winter it will be impossible to walk to Radensk or other settlements to obtain food because the ground will freeze and be covered with snow, while all routes out of the city and the surrounding fields are littered with mines.

She said that last year some "transporters" were willing to take people out of Oleshky for money: "It was expensive and the cost varied, but people could pay to be taken out of the city. These were transporters. There were no volunteers carrying out evacuations, and there still aren't."

Hasanenko said there are isolated cases of people attempting to cross mined fields. They headed towards Radensk, but the journey involves walking 20 kilometres or more, and not everyone is physically able to manage it.

Hasanenko described a small number of cases in which people managed to leave. She said 11 people escaped the city in this way.

However, she said around 2,000 people still remain in Oleshky itself.

Quote from Hasanenko: "Two thousand means the town of Oleshky itself, the centre of the hromada , where 24,000 people lived before the full-scale invasion. The Oleshky hromada also includes another 12 settlements besides the city. There were 13 settlements in total and the population was 40,000. Five settlements were completely destroyed, so no one lives there. Three settlements were 80% destroyed... In Oleshky and the surrounding villages, there are 6,000 people, including 182 children." 

Background:

• At the end of March, Dmytro Lubinets, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, said the Russian-occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast is "not living, but surviving".
• Ukraine's 34th Marine Brigade posted a video showing temporarily occupied Oleshky in Kherson Oblast, describing it as "a city the Russians have turned into a ghost town".

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