A Ukrainian city you’ve likely never heard of is quietly being crushed between two armies—and beginning to go hungry. In Oleshky, a once-bustling tourist town now wedged on the southern front line, about 2,000 civilians are trapped with almost no food, medicine, or safe way out, reports the New York Times. The city sits across the Dnipro River from Ukrainian-held Kherson, with Russian forces firing from Oleshky and Ukrainian forces firing back from across the water. Mines, constant drone strikes, and destroyed roads have made it nearly impossible to bring in supplies or organize evacuations.
The Times, drawing on messages from residents and Tetiana Hasanenko, Oleshky’s exiled city leader, details people boiling their last pots of soup, digging through ruined basements for scraps, and risking injury or death by fleeing on foot or bicycle. “In the autumn, we will definitely die,” one resident recently wrote. “I am already dying. I am getting weaker with each day.” The local hospital, meanwhile, is trying to function with no power or running water, or even basic medical supplies, per the Kyiv Independent.
“The only thing they can do is stop the bleeding. There are no medicines,” says Hasanenko. Ukraine accuses Russia of blocking aid, seizing food, and using civilians as human shields, per the Times. The Kremlin concedes there’s a “genuine humanitarian catastrophe,” but it blames Ukraine for preventing departures and stymieing food and water deliveries. Some of the city’s feline residents have had better luck: Ukrainska Pravda reports on six cats who were recently airlifted out of the city in a cage and across the river to safety by a bomber drone. For a stark look at how civilians are being boxed in by this war, the full Times piece here.