---
title: "Four Tonnes of Food From the Sky, and Nobody Coming by Road: Oleshky on the Brink"
description: "With Russia barring aid to the occupied city, Ukraine’s military sent drones to feed it"
author: "Inez Holloway"
published: 2026-09-27T20:37:57.970Z
modified: 2026-09-28T05:17:18Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/four-tonnes-of-food-from-the-sky-and-nobody-coming-by-road-o-3963e7
language: en
tags: ["ukraine", "war", "drones", "food", "starvation", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Four Tonnes of Food From the Sky, and Nobody Coming by Road: Oleshky on the Brink

*With Russia barring aid to the occupied city, Ukraine’s military sent drones to feed it*

By Inez Holloway · September 27, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/four-tonnes-of-food-from-the-sky-and-nobody-coming-by-road-o-3963e7

## In brief

- Ukraine says its military dropped four tonnes of food and cooking oil at 100 sites in Russian-occupied Oleshky by drone
- Officials estimate about 6,000 people, including some 200 children, remain; the prewar population was about 20,000
- Officials say the aid will last up to a month, and that Russian troops seized some supplies from residents
- Kyiv calls the situation a “full blockade” and asked the UN for pressure; Moscow acknowledges shortages but says it is addressing them
- A 70-year-old resident walked six hours out of the city; others barter vegetables for eggs and forage weeds, witnesses say

The boxes came down on Saturday, in waves, at a hundred different points across the city: food and cooking oil, four tonnes of it, released from drones the way seed might be scattered, except that the ground below was occupied. Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro in southern Ukraine, is held by Russian troops, and by Ukrainian officials’ account it has been sealed. Nothing comes in by road. So the Ukrainian military planned for weeks, cleared the neighbourhoods of Russian positions and drones where it could, and dropped what it could carry from the air.

The geography explains the method. Oleshky sits barely three kilometres south of the Dnipro, and the river is now the front line — Kherson and the right bank held by Ukraine, the left bank by Russia, which seized Oleshky on the first day of the full-scale invasion, more than four and a half years ago. Before February 2022 the city held about 20,000 people. Ukrainian officials estimate roughly 6,000 remain, among them some 200 children.

“This \[aid\] will give people the opportunity to live there for up to a month,” Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, deputy head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, told CBC News, and then said plainly that the solution could be short-lived. Drone video confirmed some residents received the food, he said; in some cases Russian troops forcibly seized supplies from civilians. There have been smaller drops since April. This one was meant to be visible.

## Under blockade

At the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the residents of Oleshky were under a “full blockade,” Russian forces refusing humanitarian aid, and he asked the world to pressure Moscow to open the city and to create an evacuation corridor. The Kremlin has acknowledged critical shortages of food and medicine in Oleshky. It says Russian forces are working to address the problems.

Inside the city there are no functioning stores. The nearest supplies are some 20 kilometres away, at Radensk, and Ukrainian officials say the roads out are mined and too dangerous to travel. Verification of anything in Oleshky is nearly impossible — people under occupation fear reprisals for speaking, the mobile connections fail. What is known comes in fragments.

One fragment: a 70-year-old woman walked out on Tuesday, six hours on foot. Her daughter-in-law spoke to CBC News by phone, on the condition she not be named, because the old woman is still in Russian-held territory. “Over the last six months, their circumstances had deteriorated significantly,” the woman said. “People have been constantly searching for food. What they could obtain was sometimes just two potatoes and two pieces of garlic.” Neighbours, she said, were bartering — vegetables for eggs.

Another fragment: messages received by Tetiana Hasanenko, the Ukrainian head of the Oleshky military administration, now working in exile in Mykolaiv. The messages could not be independently verified. In one of them, a resident described what dinner has become. “\[People\] are exchanging information about how to cook, basically, grass and weeds that grow in the gardens. Because there are no basic food products,” Hasanenko said. She described constant shelling, residents losing limbs, some dying for want of medical care.

The plight of Oleshky has circulated widely inside Ukraine — social media campaigns, signs held up at sporting events — and barely at all beyond it. Cory Woods, a Canadian who once did humanitarian work in the country and now flies as a drone-interceptor pilot, has watched the world’s attention turn to talk of negotiations. He finds the sequence wrong. “There’s a lot going on with talk of negotiations and peace negotiations for the war at large. All of that needs to be put on hold, and our focus needs to be on Oleshky and helping these people.”

“At the very least, get food, water and, at best, get them out of there.”