KYIV, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s military has used drones to deliver food and medicine to the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky, the governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region said, as officials warn about a worsening humanitarian crisis.
Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Sunday that, in the latest operation, heavy-lift drones delivered about four tons of food and medical supplies to 100 locations across the town simultaneously.
Oleshky, a frontline town on the Dnipro River, which separates Russian and Ukrainian forces, has been under Russian occupation since 2022.
Prokudin said that close to 2,000 people, including about 50 children, were being held “hostage”, without food, electricity and water, and accused Moscow’s forces of preventing them from escaping the town.
Ukrainian officials have warned of the situation in Oleshky becoming more dire.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has said that residents have endured months of food shortages and “extremely limited” access to basic necessities.
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets told Ukrainian media this month that Russia had not agreed to Ukrainian proposals to allow civilians to evacuate from Oleshky.
“People in the temporarily occupied Oleshky are being deprived of the basic means of survival. Russia bears full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe and its consequences,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Sunday.
The Kremlin said last week that Oleshky had critical problems with food and medicine supplies, but that Russia’s military was working to resolve them.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk, Editing by Xevi Fontdegloria)
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