‘The smell of death is everywhere’: Inside the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Russian-occupied Oleshky, where hundreds are trapped without food, electricity, or medicine

Since 2022, residents of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region have lived under occupation. In 2023, the city was flooded after the Kakhovka dam was blown up: the flooding destroyed dozens of residential blocks and all of its infrastructure. In the fall of 2026, Oleshky found itself cut off. There’s a