Between 1,500 and 2,000 people, including dozens of children, remain in Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region, according to Ukrainian authorities. The occupied city has no reliable electricity, gas or drinking water, while ambulances cannot reach residents. Radio Svoboda reported the accounts on Monday, October 26.

The last vehicle carrying food reportedly entered Oleshky on May 26 before Russian forces mined or dug up access roads. Families relied on garden produce through the summer, and evacuees recalled that even a kilogram of buckwheat or rice was considered a rare windfall. Ukrainian troops later used drones to deliver about four tonnes of food after a four-month interruption.

People who escaped also alleged intimidation and violence by Russian servicemen. One woman said an armed soldier held her family captive for 11 days, while other residents described forced entries, beatings and gunfire inside homes. These testimonies could not be independently verified from within the occupied city.

Evacuation often involves walking more than 20 kilometres along routes where anti-personnel mines and armed drones have been reported. Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said Russian forces would halt fire in the Kherson sector from 4 a.m. on October 27 for a humanitarian operation in Oleshky. No outcome of that planned pause was available at the time of publication.