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There is a town in the south of Ukraine called Oleshky. It lies in the Kherson region, across the river in Russian occupied territory from the city of Kherson. Right now, the few remaining residents of this town are being starved to death. This is what Russia refers to as “liberation.”
If you were to watch the briefings given to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the supposed progress of the Russian army in Ukraine, they constantly refer to the settlements they have reportedly captured as having been “liberated.” This is one of the core lies of the Russian regime. The word liberation means to free something. The people of Oleshky are not being freed from anything. Quite the opposite, they are being held hostage, and they are being used as human shields.
Deliberate Starvation and Human Safari
In early 2022 as the Russian army sought to create their land bridge between Russia itself and Crimea to guarantee supply routes to maintain the occupied peninsula, parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions (oblasts) found themselves suddenly under Russian control. The locals, regardless of what language they may speak, did not ask for this. In an instant they became hostages to their situation. Men with guns, and larger weapons, seized power.
At that time, the population of Oleshky was about 40,000. It is by no means one of the largest urbanisations that came under occupation, but it is now one of the most critically endangered places in Ukraine. Estimates vary, there are at least 2,000 civilians remaining there, possibly as many as 6,000. And they are starving. The areas surrounding this settlement are mined or covered by drones. There is no way out for an evacuation, there is no way in for a food delivery. This is by design. Russian design. What is happening to the people here is deliberate.
Aid agencies are ready to move in to evacuate people, something that would be a monumental and dangerous undertaking, but the controlling Russian authorities are refusing to allow this to happen, contrary to international law.
Under Article 55 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power has the obligation to provide food and medical supplies as needed to areas they control. If they are not able, then under Article 59 of the same Convention they are obliged to facilitate relief provisions offered through impartial international humanitarian organisations. Starving civilians and willfully impeding relief supplies are war crimes.
The reason why Russia is doing this, apart from the fact that this sick society revels in acts of cruelty anyway, is that Oleshky is a key location in the commission of further war crimes that Russia sees as central to its key goals in Ukraine: to make any place it can uninhabitable. In Kherson city, Russian forces have been engaged in what Byline Times journalist Zarina Zabrisky has famously documented as their “human safari.”
The safari, where drones hunt down ordinary men and women as they try to go about their daily lives, is launched from across the Dnipro River, ie: those drones are launched from places like Oleshky.
The reason why the roads in and out of Oleshky are impassable is that the town is a garrison. It is a base from which Russia coordinates and carries out its “human safari.” It is for this reason the Kremlin’s forces will not allow any outsiders in, or anyone from the inside to get out. The roads leading to this place are heavily mined in order to stop Ukrainian forces from advancing on it to put a stop to the human safari. The fact that this leads to the starvation of thousands of people is, in the Russian mindset, an irrelevance.
Operation Vivaldi
In the Russian “negotiated” view of how this war ends, all war crimes charges will be dropped anyway, so this additional war crime does not concern it in the slightest. The bigger goal, for as long as fighting continues, is to make Kherson unlivable. Just like it has made the cities it has “liberated” in the east of Ukraine uninhabitable too. Every example shows the same story; Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Vuhledar, they all now lie in ruins since the Russian armed forces “liberated” them. Life in each of those places is impossible.
The same scorched earth plan is also unfolding in the cities in the Donbas that remain under Ukrainian control, the largest of which are Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. There too the arteries that carry the life blood of civilised existence are being choked off, as Putin has ordered them to be “liberated” by year-end. This would be the 16th deadline that Putin has ordered for the capture of the rest of the Donbas, Ukraine on the other hand, has other ideas.
Operation Vivaldi.
At first quietly, for operational security reason, but now acknowledged by the Ukrainian military, an operation of genuine liberation has been underway in eastern Ukraine as Ukrainian forces are returning land that had been taken by Russia. As of the time of writing, Operation Vivaldi has recaptured 176 Km² of territory in Ukraine’s eastern provinces. Ironically, the first signs that any of this was underway came from Russian military bloggers reporting lost positions to the north and east of the city of Sloviansk, around the city of Lyman.
Now that the Russians themselves have given the game away, Ukraine has lifted the veil of secrecy that had accompanied Operation Vivaldi and made announcements of not only the size of the territory recovered from the enemy, but also the number of enemy soldiers killed and the number of those who are surrendering as they have been overrun and as Ukraine’s advance-planning “shaping operations” have left them woefully supplied with rations and fuel and ammunition and backup manpower.
What Happens Next?
As the winter approaches, Russian forces in the trenches are faced with a choice, surrender to the advancing Ukrainian army and live out the rest of the war being treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, or die in the mud. In recent days 250 Russian soldiers have chosen to surrender and live.
The people of Oleshky do not have the luxury of such a choice. They are being utilised as human shields by the Russian occupiers that came uninvited to their homes. So that the Russians can project terror across the Dnipro as the human safari continues from bases in towns like Oleshky.
The international community does have a choice. Do they issue statements of concern about the deteriorating situation in Oleshky, or do they act to force the Russians to stop the intentional mass starvation that is underway?
Will Chancellor Merz announce, “allow an international organisation in, or we send 100 Taurus missiles to Ukraine tomorrow”? Will President Trump announce that unless the people of Oleshky are spared a certain death, the Lindsey Graham “sanctions from hell” Bill will be enacted? Will the UN, their General Assembly just completed, force representatives from the Russian Federation to sit in the Security Council chair that they unlawfully occupy and answer for themselves over this monstrous war crime, as it is happening, in real time?
Will the world sit by and watch as thousands of people are starved to death by Putin and his evil henchmen?
