Four months after Euromaidan Press first documented the drone siege of occupied Oleshky and neighboring communities, the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the Institute for the Study of War have independently confirmed the humanitarian crisis, major international outlets covered it, and the Pope has been informed. Yet interviews with residents, volunteers, and local officials indicate that conditions continue to deteriorate, with thousands of civilians trapped without food, medical care, or a safe way to leave.

International reports confirm the humanitarian catastrophe

Reports published by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and the Institute for the Study of War in late June and July 2026 point to a worsening humanitarian crisis in Russian-occupied Oleshky, where civilians face starvation as they remain trapped by drone attacks, landmines, and restrictions on movement.

On 25 June, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) called the situation in Oleshky and neighboring territories "desperate." Continuous first-person-view (FPV) drone attacks and extensive mine contamination have severely restricted the delivery of food, medical assistance and evacuations. Ukrainian authorities estimate that up to 6,000 civilians, including more than 180 children, remain in the occupied communities.

The mission documented at least 29 civilians killed and 54 injured in Oleshky and Hola Prystan in 2026 alone, most of them in attacks involving short-range drones.

"Frequent attacks by short-range drones and the presence of landmines are having devastating consequences for thousands of people in these communities," said Danielle Bell, Head of HRMMU. "People can't get out, food can't get in, and sick and injured are not getting the medical assistance they need."

HRMMU called for a local ceasefire to allow evacuations and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Human Rights Watch reached similar conclusions. The organization documented severe shortages of food and medical care, the collapse of basic services, and constant danger from drones and landmines. Former residents said there was no organized evacuation route and that those leaving the occupied town had to pass through Russian military checkpoints before traveling through Russia and Belarus to reach Ukrainian-controlled territory.

Men who want to escape face a further trap: leaving in practice requires Russian travel documents, and applying for them, HRW found, funnels men straight to a military enlistment office. Compelling civilians in occupied territory to serve in the occupying power's forces is a war crime, the organization noted.

Human Rights Watch could not determine responsibility for individual drone strikes or the emplacement of specific mines in the area. The organization noted that Oleshky sits on the front line and has been subjected to sustained attacks by Ukrainian forces as well, and that it found credible indications Ukrainian forces may have used drones and mines on roads around the town. It said civilians wishing to leave are entitled to safe passage under international humanitarian law.

According to HRW, Russia, as the occupying power, is responsible for ensuring access to food, medical care, and humanitarian assistance.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) concluded that Russia is effectively blockading occupied Oleshky while failing to meet its obligations under international humanitarian law as an occupying power. The report mentioned that "the Russian military command deployed a detachment of penal recruits to Oleshky in early July, resulting in widespread abuses against the civilian population, including sexual assaults committed against women and minors."

On 15 July, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) reported that conditions "remain especially dire in the Russian-occupied frontline areas of Kherson region."

As of May 2026, around 6,000 residents, including approximately 200 children, remained in and around Oleshky and Hola Prystan, where witnesses described towns transformed into a combat zone. ODIHR also received accounts that Russian forces prevented residents from leaving Oleshky and used civilians to shield military positions.

The crisis in Oleshky and the surrounding areas has received growing attention in international media. The Washington Post described Oleshky as a town being slowly strangled under occupation, citing accounts from recently evacuated residents, and called the situation "unbelievably awful." Le Monde published a detailed report on the suffering of the civilians. The Times' dispatch is called Four years of horror in Ukraine's 'forgotten Bucha.'

Houses damaged by drones and artillery, Oleshky. July 2026. Photos provided by Ksenia Arkhipova.

Houses damaged by drones and artillery, Oleshky. July 2026. Photos provided by Ksenia Arkhipova.

Houses damaged by drones and artillery, Oleshky. July 2026. Photos provided by Ksenia Arkhipova.

On 16 July, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha raised the humanitarian situation in Oleshky and Hola Prystan during a meeting in Kyiv with the Vatican representative, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, stressing the urgent need for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate thousands of civilians. The same day, at a Vatican meeting of Nobel laureates, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk spoke about Russia's drone attacks on civilians in the Kherson region.

While the information blockade is broken, the siege continues.

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Reports from the ground

"Only one ambulance was able to leave Oleshky and come back since May 26," said Ksenia Arkhipova, the volunteer from Oleshky who helps to organize evacuation and speaks to the locals despite the problems with communication. "That's it. There is no food."

Arkhipova spoke to Euromaidan Press over the phone from her home in Ukrainian-controlled territory. According to her contacts in the occupied territories, the situation in the nearby villages has deteriorated dramatically. Civilians are reportedly killed while attempting to leave to buy food or bottled gas. Residents describe drones overhead that make leaving basements next to impossible.

These reports are confirmed by Oleshky Military Administration head Tetyana Hasanenko, also living in exile. She said that roads leading from villages farther from the Dnipro River, including Radensk, Chelburda, and Kostohryzove, have also become increasingly dangerous.

In Oleshky, the terror campaign is ongoing.

Three former residents speaking to their relatives have confirmed to Euromaidan Press that the newly arrived Russian military personnel are former convicts who loot and rob residents of the last food.

V., who recently escaped Oleshky and spoke to Euromaidan Press on the conditions of anonymity, said one man who lived alone was tortured to death in his basement; his neighbors found the body and managed to bury it. Others were beaten, and there are accounts of sexual violence, according to V.

The accounts were confirmed by Kherson's popular Telegram channel Kherson: Non Fake.

Posts appearing in the Oleshky community groups mentioned the robbery by former convicts. One post sought help for a dog "dying of hunger." The dog owner, who shared all the food with the pet, pleaded for evacuation.

"Now there is nothing left for people to eat," the post read.

According to Hasanenko, residents are on the brink of starvation. She described conditions in Oleshky as "hell on earth." She said the town's morgue had long been destroyed, around 100 bodies remained in the basement of the hospital for months because they could not be buried, and occupying authorities were preventing families from recovering the dead.

The reports point to the same conclusion: an urgent need for a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to evacuate safely and humanitarian aid to reach those who remain.

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A pastor who prays with President Donald Trump says he had never heard of Russia's drone campaign against civilians in Kherson—until Euromaidan Press told him.

"I have not heard about this," said Pastor Mark Burns, one of Trump's closest spiritual advisers, when briefed this week on Russia's "human safari" against civilians in Kherson and the drone siege trapping thousands of people in the occupied region across the river. By the end of the conversation, he had pledged to raise it with the president, senators, and members of Congress from both parties.

The campaign Burns had not heard of has a UN crime-against-humanity finding, named suspects facing war-crimes charges, a draft US bill, and a bipartisan screening at the US Capitol behind it. A man who prays with the president learned of it this week, from a journalist.

What he didn't know

For more than a year, Russian forces have used first-person-view drones to hunt civilians in Kherson's streets—women walking to the store, cyclists, bus passengers, emergency responders, journalists, even animals. Human Rights Watch and the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine have concluded the attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Across the river, 5,000 to 6,000 civilians remain trapped in occupied Oleshky, Hola Prystan, and nearby settlements, under what Ukraine has called a drone-controlled siege—mined roads, blocked aid, and no reliable food, medicine, or power. EP reported on the UN's findings in November. In September, the UN concluded the campaign amounts to a crime against humanity; the Security Service of Ukraine has since charged 10 operators from Russia's 404th Motorized Rifle Regiment with war crimes in absentia.

"Terrifying," he said in an interview with Euromaidan Press. "I did not know about this dire situation and that innocent people were being targeted in this human safari. It's becoming the new killing fields. That's what the Nazis used to do to the Jews. Russians are doing this now to the innocent people of Kherson."

He drew a line between combat and what he called deliberate attacks on civilians: "The fact that Russians are using drones to target innocent people—that is not war. These are war crimes. Targeting innocent people, children, and hospitals is against the Geneva Convention. They're attacking churches. They're attacking journalists. This is at the hands of Putin, a man who claims to be a Christian and claims to have moral authority. But yet the Russian Orthodox Church blesses missiles. They bless these drones that go out to kill innocent children, kill innocent people. And they're not trying to win a war. They are simply trying to terrorize the people. It's their mission. And that's what the world is starting to see."

He said he would raise it with US leadership—"the President, the Senators, the Congress, Democrats, and Republicans"—calling it something that "needs to be heard."

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A gap he says is closing—but wasn't closed for him

Burns argued that American public awareness of Russian disinformation is improving. "The veil of the Russian propaganda is breaking," he said. "It is falling. More and more people in America are seeing right through the Russian propaganda and lies."

He said this a few minutes after saying he had not heard of the Kherson campaign, which the UN documented months ago. Both statements are his.

Burns traced his own shift to a 2025 visit to Bucha and Irpin, where he said seeing the evidence firsthand changed his understanding of the war.

Where he says US support stands

Burns said the US does not trust Russia—"We're not friends with Russia"—and pointed to the Ukraine Support Act, which the House passed in June with more than $8 billion in military financing loans for Ukraine. "We just passed an $8 billion bill to support the war effort in Ukraine," he said. The bill has cleared the House; it still needs Senate approval and the president's signature before it becomes law.

He said Ukraine's fight serves European security broadly—"Ukraine is on the front lines for Europe"—and that US intelligence assessments he's aware of see Putin's ambitions extending past Ukraine: "He will continue to Georgia, Poland, Moldova, and the Balkan states in his attempt to reestablish the former USSR. He's using Ukraine as a test."

He described relations between Kyiv and Washington as improved since President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's meeting with Trump at the G7, saying Trump "recently said that Ukraine is doing an amazing job" and "is winning the war."

What comes next

Burns said he would make the Kherson tragedy one of his rallying cries. "This is about spiritual diplomacy," he said. "And in the name of faith, that is my spiritual obligation as a man of God to do whatever it takes to promote peace and to promote the well-being of the innocent."

"I often say that Ukraine has the most powerful nation and the most powerful military in Europe," he added. "It is pushing back the full might of the Russian empire, the Russian Federation. 20,000–30,000 Russian soldiers are dying every month at the hands of the Ukrainians, and not because Ukrainians want war, but because they are defending their home."

Burns did not specify whether he meant killed or killed and wounded. Independent counts of Russian deaths run lower. Mediazona and the BBC's Russian service have confirmed more than 229,000 Russian soldiers killed by name as of late June 2026—a floor rather than a full toll, since the count includes only deaths verifiable through open sources. British intelligence has put the figure far higher: the head of GCHQ said in May that nearly 500,000 Russian troops had been killed since 2022. Ukraine's General Staff, which reports killed and wounded together, logs Russian losses at roughly 1,000 or more a day.

Burns said he plans to visit Ukraine as soon as August and is considering a trip to Kherson itself, "to let people know that the President has not forgotten."

Whether that follows through—and whether it changes anything in Washington—is untested. What's on record now is narrower and more specific: a pledge, made after being shown what he says he didn't know.

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