⬛️ "People are poisoning their dogs so they won't suffer from hunger"

How the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky is surviving, with no food deliveries since May

– Excerpts from an article by Natalia Mazina, Hromadske

⬛️ Trapped in occupied Oleshky

Around 2,000 civilians, including 47 children, remain trapped in Russian-occupied Oleshky [...] where residents are running out of food and medicine and evacuation is effectively impossible. [...] Then, in June 2023, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam flooded the area, leaving Oleshky without centralized water supplies, electricity or gas. Now, the only road into the city is mined and watched by drones.

⬛️ The struggle for food

In early September, after drones destroyed a convoy carrying food toward the city, residents walked seven kilometers along a mined road to salvage what remained: burned potatoes, a little onions and flatbread soaked by rain. [...]

Alla Lykhman-Malysh runs an animal shelter [...] and has stayed because she cannot abandon the animals in her care. “People survived the summer somehow on cucumbers and tomatoes [...]” But with the growing season ending [...] residents had exhausted what little reserves they had.

⬛️ Extreme hunger

One relative of journalist Mariia Semenchenko, who remains in Oleshky, now drinks water in the morning, eats one meal during the day and has grapes for dinner. In late September, his lunch was soup cooked outside on a wood-burning stove: soaked beans, a potato, a tomato and a pepper fried in margarine manufactured five years ago and recently found in a basement. [...] People feed their pets boiled snakes when they can catch them, while some dogs are being poisoned by their owners to spare them a prolonged death from starvation.

⬛️ Market collapse and barter economy

Food can still occasionally be found at Oleshky's market, but supplies are scarce and prices have soared. A kilogram of potatoes, onions, sugar or salt costs around 1,000 rubles ($12). Ten eggs cost about 1,500 rubles ($18), while a kilogram of margarine produced in 2021 was recently offered for 2,000 rubles ($24).

“Money has almost no value there because people rarely have anything to sell,” Hasanenko said. “People survive through barter.” [...] residents go there to exchange news.

⬛️ A city of shallow graves

The basement of Oleshky's hospital now serves as a makeshift morgue. Around 100 bodies are being kept there, according to Hasanenko, some of them since winter. The normal process of burying the dead has largely broken down. [...] But as the number of deaths has risen and ambulances have stopped operating, some residents have begun burying their dead in shallow graves in their gardens. Stray dogs sometimes dig up the graves.

⬛️ Walking through minefields

“These people need to be saved. The city has turned into a death trap,” [Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner] Dmytro Lubinets said. [...] “The most frightening thing is that people are already walking through mined fields on their own,” Lubinets said. “They risk being blown up by a mine or hit by a drone, but they still go because staying in Oleshky is even worse.” [...] Semenchenko fears time is running out. “They will not survive this winter.”

– Natalia Mazina

[Source: Hromadske]