The appeal says that Oleshky are under a humanitarian blockade: the last delivery of food, according to the authors of the letter, was at the end of May 2026, and Russian military personnel are preventing residents from leaving the city.
The authors of the letter claim that more than six thousand people may remain in Oleshky and the suburbs, including about 200 children. They also write that the city is near the front line, its infrastructure has been destroyed, and there is no gas or electricity.
The document says that there is a shortage in the city and surrounding areas not only of food, but also of drinking water and medicines. The All-Ukrainian Council of Churches is asking religious leaders, the UN, and the International Red Cross to use every possible means to save the city’s residents from death by starvation.
Deutsche Welle published a report on Oleshky in which a volunteer from the Humanity organization, Iryna-Esther Vrataryova, says that the city is in a “mine-drone blockade”. According to her, food has not been delivered for four months, the surrounding area is mined, and transport and the banking system are not working, so people “have no money”.
There, Ukrainian Armed Forces serviceman Pavlo Drohal stated that Russian troops do not allow humanitarian supplies to be brought into the city and do not let residents leave Oleshky. The Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, said that he had held negotiations with the Russian side and agreements had been reached on a humanitarian corridor, but Russia has for a long time not confirmed its readiness to carry out a humanitarian mission to evacuate people.
Lubinets also said that people are walking through mined fields because they see no other way to get out of the city. According to him, they risk being blown up by a mine or coming under a drone strike, but they still try to leave.
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