A winter of hunger looms for residents trapped in Russian-occupied city in Ukraine

Food and medical supplies have been scarce for months in Oleshky, which sits on the Dnipro River that separates Ukrainian forces from the city’s Russian occupiers. There’s no electricity, heat or running water. Roads leading from town are mined and dotted with burned-out cars. Menacing drones buzz overhead.

One desperate resident watched the front-line city slide further toward a humanitarian crisis as its trapped population dwindled to fewer than 2,000 people. She decided it was time to escape via what's been dubbed “the road of death.”

So the 40-year-old former hairdresser walked -- for 20 kilometers (12 miles), along the partially mined road — fearing that “every step could have been my last," she said.

Once a city of about 24,000, Oleshky was captured by Moscow’s forces on the first day of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Its buildings were shelled and burned, and its infrastructure damaged. Further calamity struck in June 2023 when floodwaters inundated the city after the Kakhovka Dam collapsed from an explosion that an Associated Press investigation found was likely caused by the Russian military, killing hundreds of residents.

And now those still left in the battered city along Ukraine's southeastern front face death from hunger or disease as another harsh winter looms, with no agreement in sight for even a humanitarian evacuation.

“There is nothing left in Oleshky,” said the woman, who fled in August and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because she feared for her security. “No food, no supplies, no medical care, no aid whatsoever.”

Both sides blame each other for the catastrophe. Russia says Ukraine deliberately blocks supplies and evacuations; Kyiv counters that Moscow is effectively holding civilians hostage.

Ukraine has appealed repeatedly for a local ceasefire to organize evacuations. Russia, which as the occupying power is obligated by international law to ensure civilians under its control have what they need to survive, has made no commitment.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned Oleshky’s suffering at the hands of Russia on Oct. 12 at an international forum in Poland, saying the city had been “razed to the ground.”

Ukraine is "trying to help these people, but they are under occupation,” he said. “Unblock the city of Oleshky and bring our citizens back.”

In a phone call Friday with President Vladimir Putin, Pope Leo XIV urged a ceasefire to allow food and medicine deliveries to Oleshky and to safely evacuate civilians, the Vatican said. The Kremlin said Putin voiced support for the Vatican efforts to help protect the population and secure vital supplies, and voiced readiness to cooperate.

Remaining residents reportedly scrounge for food amid destroyed buildings, or try to grow vegetables in garden plots. Water is drawn from wells. Firewood is used for warmth. Bodies at the city morgue decompose with no electricity.

Another 100 bodies fill the basement of Oleshky's hospital, said Tetiana Hasanenko, the exiled head of the city's Ukrainian military administration.

The U.N. human rights office said the last regular food delivery by road was May 26. Oleshky's Russian-installed officials said this month they delivered 2 tons of aid, although they admitted it was hardly enough.

The U.N. office said Oleshky's hospital lacks medicine and basic supplies, drone attacks prevent ambulances from reaching patients, and it's unsafe to take them elsewhere.

“It is impossible to live in Oleshky, there is no life left there,” said another resident who fled to Russian-held Mariupol and spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his security.

Even the Russian soldiers have moved deeper into the occupied part of the Kherson region, farther from the Dnipro, according to the former hairdresser. The Moscow-appointed authorities seemed to have "given up on us a long time ago,” she said.

She considered herself lucky to have survived the journey from Oleshky to the village of Radensk, also occupied by Russia but farther from the front line and thus better off.

She said an acquaintance who tried to bring food into Oleshky was killed on the road when his car came under fire, adding that she saw a photo of him “covered in blood, with bread and chicken legs scattered around him.”

Hasanenko said the route from Oleshky to Radensk is known as “the road of death” because "corpses lie on this road and no one is taking them away." She cited an explosion this month that killed four people and left an 86-year-old man badly wounded.

Russian troops were driven out of the larger city of Kherson across the Dnipro in 2022 but mined the roads around Oleshky, said Lt. Yevhen Voronetskyi, a spokesman with Ukraine’s 34th Separate Marine Brigade. Kyiv's drones also remotely mined forest paths used by Russian troops, he said.

Some evacuees who make it to Radensk try to return to Oleshky with food “because they have children waiting at home, or immobile elderly parents," Hasanenko said, saying at least 35 children remain there.

Ksenia Arkhipova, who fled Oleshky in 2022 and now helps others leave, said nearby occupied towns and villages in a zone along the Dnipro face similar dire conditions and mined roads.

It takes six to eight hours to walk or cycle from Oleshky to Radensk, she said, because evacuees might be older and weakened by hunger, or they have to wait out attacks or carry their bikes to avoid the mines.

Travel is only possible in dry weather, Arkhipova said, and "I'm terrified at the thought of the coming winter, when many people in Oleshky will be simply doomed."

Some of them don't want to leave their homes or risk a dangerous journey, Voronetskyi said.

Russia and Ukraine have discussed a possible temporary ceasefire and humanitarian corridor but reached no agreement, the U.N. human rights office said. “With winter approaching, the issue is urgent,” it said.

While communications with Moscow continue, "Russia has not provided clear, verifiable guarantees for conducting a humanitarian operation,” according to the office of Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets.

The mined roads make an evacuation impossible, and not all residents want to leave, according to the city's Russian-installed officials.

Vladimir Saldo, who was appointed by Moscow as governor of the occupied part of the Kherson region, promised earlier this month to help anyone who wants to leave the town. The former hairdresser told AP that residents have appealed to local authorities several times for a humanitarian corridor and submitted lists of those hoping to leave, but nothing came of it.

The International Committee of the Red Cross was ready to assist an evacuation but only if both countries agree and there are security guarantees for civilians, said ICRC spokesperson Sarah Davies.

Voronetskyi, the Ukrainian lieutenant, said the food shortages in Oleshky have persisted for months and are getting “worse and worse.”

His brigade has flown drones capable of carrying at least 20 kilograms (44 pounds) each over the Dnipro into the city with food aid for at least a year, he said, adding that more than 7 tons were delivered since September.

The parcels contained canned food, ingredients for baking bread, along with buckwheat, rice, sugar and candy for children. along with hygiene kits and medicine, including insulin, he said.

But Voronetskyi cautioned that these supplies weren't meant to get people through the winter but to help them "gather their strength, pack their things ... and still try to leave Oleshky.”

Russia should “come in and take the people out,” he said. "No one will stop you.”

Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia, and Arhirova reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.