A City Behind the Dnipro
Oleshky, known as Tsiurupynsk until 2016, sits on the left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast. Before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, roughly 25,000 people lived there. Russian forces took the city in early March 2022. After Ukrainian forces retook Kherson city that November, the Dnipro became a front line. Oleshky stayed on the occupied side. Residents now describe a place where food, water, and medicine arrive irregularly or not at all. Phone and Telegram testimonies mention nettles, sorrel, dandelion, and orach, called loboda locally, boiled into soups. This is not a famine in the abstract. It is a daily calculation of what can be found, picked, and hidden.
The Responsibility Gap in International Law
Under Geneva Convention IV, Article 55, an occupying power must ensure food and medical supplies for the civilian population. Hague Regulations Article 43 requires it to restore and ensure public order. Additional Protocol I, Article 69, addresses relief actions. Russia is the de facto authority in Oleshky. The Kremlin denies blocking aid and sometimes claims Ukrainian forces prevent deliveries. Kyiv says Russia blocks humanitarian access and uses food as a weapon. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has documented denied convoys and refused corridors. UN OCHA and ICRC have not received sustained access. The result is a legal black hole. No side admits full control, no side delivers, and civilians remain in a gray zone of responsibility. The gap is not a failure of paperwork. It is a method of neglect.
Kakhovka Dam Collapse and the Water Catastrophe
The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on June 6, 2023, turned a military occupation into an environmental emergency. Floodwaters swept downstream. The Kakhovka Reservoir drained. Oleshky had depended on canals, wells, and trucked water. The canal network lost its headwater. Irrigation channels dried. Sediment and salt moved into soil. Without safe water, diarrheal disease spreads. Hepatitis A and Vibrio cholerae become real risks when people drink from shallow wells or the river. Malnutrition weakens immune systems, so infections last longer. Acute malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, including iron and vitamin A shortages, compound untreated chronic illness. The dam collapse was not a single event. It is a force multiplier that keeps working through every dry canal and every contaminated bucket.
Telegram, Barter, and the Informal Economy of Survival
Formal systems have collapsed. Banks are closed. Pensions and salaries arrive unpredictably, if at all. Shops have little stock. The hospital lacks medicines and staff. Into that void comes an informal economy of survival. Telegram chats carry practical knowledge: which weeds are edible, how to cook orach, how to dry nettles for winter. People barter eggs for flour, firewood for insulin, cigarettes for batteries. A jar of preserved tomatoes can become a unit of exchange. These networks are hyper-local, built around courtyards, basements, and apartment blocks. Trust is narrow because betrayal can be lethal. This is not a romantic story of resilience. It is a tactical adaptation. Digital tools serve primal needs: find calories, find water, find a way to keep a child alive for another week.
Invisible Casualties and the Mourning Problem
Death tolls in Oleshky cannot be verified. Occupation authorities release selective figures. Ukrainian officials cannot enter. UN monitors have no access. People die from starvation, untreated diabetes, heart disease, landmine injuries, and drone strikes. PFM-1 butterfly mines scatter in fields and gardens, so foraging for weeds can kill. Drones target boats that try to cross the Dnipro, making escape and supply runs a gamble. Mourning itself is dangerous. Cemeteries near the front are risky. Gatherings can be targeted. Families bury relatives at night, in gardens, without certificates or records. These are invisible casualties. Their deaths do not appear in reliable statistics. Grief becomes private, unmapped, and legally unresolved. The absence of numbers is not a neutral fact. It is part of the violence.
Slow Violence and the Gray Zone
Rob Nixon's term slow violence describes harm that is gradual, dispersed, and hard to photograph. Oleshky fits that pattern. The first weeks of occupation brought shock: checkpoints, disappearances, cut phone lines. The longer harm is attrition. A diabetic misses insulin for three days. A pensioner cannot reach a pharmacy. A mother dilutes milk with unsafe water. Each event is small. Together they erode life expectancy. International humanitarian law (IHL) calls this occupatio bellica, a temporary administration with duties. In Oleshky, temporariness has become open-ended. The gray zone is not only legal. It is nutritional, medical, and emotional. People do not know who will help, who will arrest them, or whether the next convoy will come. That uncertainty is a form of governance.
Missing Voices and the Cost of Documentation
High-level reporting often centers on presidents, generals, and foreign ministers. In Oleshky, the missing perspectives are those of caregivers, disabled residents, and elderly people who cannot leave. Women run many of the informal networks because men face higher risk of conscription, detention, or forced labor. Documentation itself carries a price. A resident who photographs a dead body may be accused of spreading panic. A person who shares a Telegram list of edible plants may expose the group to surveillance. Human rights monitors rely on remote interviews, which means verification is slow and incomplete. The most vulnerable are also the least represented. Their survival strategies are not policy proposals. They are workarounds.
What Can Be Known
Satellite imagery shows destroyed bridges, flooded fields, and dried canals. Open-source videos show queues for water and empty shelves. Still, quantification fails. Aid convoys are denied. Residents rely on rainwater, wells, and river water. Boiling kills some pathogens but does not remove chemical contaminants or salt. Children, elderly people, and anyone with a chronic condition face the sharpest risk. If occupation continues, malnutrition becomes chronic. If liberation comes, reconstruction will face mines, contaminated soil, and a broken water table. For now, survival is small and specific. A patch of weeds. A full canister. A message that arrives. A night without drones. The city's future is not measured in months. It is measured in what can be carried across a courtyard before dark.
