Natalia escaped from Oleshky with her 84-year-old mother at the beginning of the cityʼs blockade, but maintains contact with residents. We recorded an interview with her

1

Tell us about your life in Oleshky before the war. Where did you live? With whom? Did you have your own farm? Tell us a little about your family.

I am originally from Oleshky. I had two children there, got married there for the first time, then divorced, and then got together with my second husband Vitya. In 2011, the factory where my husband worked started paying less and less. Then the factory was looted altogether, so the children took us to Mykolaiv.

Shortly before the war, Vitya and I got sick with Covid. He did not recover. He died. In November 2021, I took him to Oleshky to bury him, because he always said he wanted to be buried there. After that, I returned to Mykolaiv. My mother moved in with me. She fed me, because I had lost a lot of weight both after the illness and due to stress.

On February 22, 2022, my mother and I arrived in Oleshky, to my motherʼs house. My two sisters also lived in the city. After my husbandʼs death, it was hard for me to fall asleep in silence and darkness, so I always had the light on and the TV on.

It was the same that night when the war began. I woke up, saw on the screen that martial law had been declared, and just went to bed. I didnʼt pay any attention to it. And in the morning, everyone started leaving. My mother said that she wouldnʼt leave the house, and I stayed with her.

How do you remember the first year and a half of the occupation? Did problems with food start right away? Was it easy to leave at the very beginning? Did the Russians immediately start hunting the locals?

At first, there was no such horror in Oleshky. Of course, missiles flew at night. I stayed awake, waiting for dawn to break. I was worried because they were attacking Mykolaiv. I cursed [Russians], wrote disgusting things on social networks. Everyone writes, and I write.

Somewhere in October 2022, one of my sisters left for Crimea. And we [my mother and I] started going between two houses: we would come there, clean, wash, cook, and then we would go to our sisterʼs, and spend the night there. Then we actually moved to our sisterʼs house.

It was also easy to leave. We constantly went to Skadovsk. I received a pension for my mother and bought things there because it was cheaper. No one immediately hunted anyone down.

Although there were various incidents. I was once in the hospital and met a woman there. She told me that she was walking through the city, and suddenly a huge drone rose from somewhere.

She says: “It appeared out of clear sky and exploded.” And she was all cut up with debris. I moved around the city on a bicycle. If I saw a drone, I tried to quickly pass by.

Lately, drones have been flying straight towards me. In such moments, you drive and think: “In which way should I fall to lie down nicely?”

2

The first and most high-profile tragedy that deeply affected Oleshky was the explosion of the Kakhovka HPP. Even then, the townspeople were faced with the problem of not being able to leave. We heard a lot about the Russians taking peopleʼs boats or shooting at those who managed to get around on boats. How did the flood affect you personally?

When the flood happened, my mother and I were at my sisterʼs house. At about five or six in the morning, a neighbor started banging on the door and shouting, "The water is coming!"

We went out, but there seemed to be no water. We looked closer, and there — along the track where the cars were driving — water was already flowing in a trickle.

My sisterʼs husband went to check what was happening, towards the village of Hopry. The water had already risen well there. Then he called his friends who lived in the center. They said that there was no water at all there: the center was on a hill, so it remained dry.

He took us there. There was a two-story house there, from which the residents had just left. We drove there: me, my mother, and four other people.

So your sisterʼs house was at the epicenter?

Yes, the house flooded. If it was not for Volodya, I donʼt know what would have happened to it.

Who is Volodya?

We met him in April 2022. I didnʼt know him before, but he says he saw me. And somehow gradually he started helping me: he would bring packages, sharpen knives, or trim trees.

When the flood happened, I gave him the keys, and he would visit my sisterʼs house. Because he was also from that street — we lived in a private house, and he lived in those large houses that are now dilapidated.

The water gradually receded, and he would go to our house and open the door so that the house could be ventilated and dried out. Even when we left in a hurry, we didnʼt take the dog. When Volodya arrived, he saw that the kennel was already floating.

There was a fighting dog there, which usually doesnʼt let anyone to itself. And he climbed in, and the dog let him take it away. He picked the dog up and dragged it to his house, to the 5th floor.

Am I understanding correctly that the house has become uninhabitable?

Volodya would go there, open the windows, and the doors. When the water had already started to go down, he would scoop it out from the door.

And then he said say to me: “Natasha, donʼt you think to come in?”

I started coming, and together we started cleaning everything. We pulled out the covers, stacked them in the yard, dried everything. At first the water was brown, dirty. Then we pumped out the water, but we didn’t do anything special. We waited for it to settle on its own. We just watched, and then the water was already clean, crystal. We tried it and started drinking.

A few blocks away there was a cemetery. But nothing [was happened with us], we were alive and well, as it may be said.

On July 16th, Volodya and I returned to the house and started living together as three people: me, my mother, and him. And a few weeks later, a tornado hit the house where we waited out the flood. It hit the first floor, where we were sleeping.

What happened to motherʼs house?

My motherʼs house was badly damaged after the flood. It is located in a lowland, where some houses simply collapsed. One side of the street was almost completely destroyed.

When they came to look after the flood, they saw that everything was twisted, falling apart, there were holes. It was a complete mess. The ceiling and attic collapsed. Trees were growing inside, there was greenery everywhere, even watermelons had grown.

Later, we were told that the Russians had settled in the basement of the house.

Why didnʼt you leave the city when the water had already receded? After all, if the houses survived, they were effectively uninhabitable.

Then we could still leave, but we held on to the house. My mother was with me, and I thought I wouldnʼt be able to take her far. We put our things in bags eight times, they stood there, and then I put them out.

As soon as the heavy shelling started, we put the bags back together. When it got more quiet, I put them out again.

And when the water receded, did the occupation authorities try to put the city in order in any way? Were there people cleaning the streets, searching for and burying the bodies of the dead?

People survived on their own. No one did anything there. No one cleaned anything up. Then the fires started…

Fires? What do you mean?

In July 2025, there were a lot of fires. The Russians dropped some kind of incendiary devices. As soon as they saw that there was wind — dry windy weather — they deliberately set something on fire. Thatʼs how they had fun.

I remember we were just returning from Skadovsk and saw that there was black smoke everywhere. Houses were burning. We ran to our neighbors, and they left, and everything was already burning.

There was firewood nearby, it caught fire, and the fire spread to the garage. Then the fire spread to our summer kitchen. Everything we had just built burned down: the kitchen, the boiler, the tiles. Honey, rice, cereals, just everything we had.

Now, as far as I know, the Russians continue to practice this method.

3

Before our conversation, you warned me that you had a contusion from a drone strike. Are you ready to talk about that?

It was September 11, 2025, when we went to Skadovsk. We decided to buy groceries, because the products there are much cheaper than here. We were driven by volunteer Hala. Of course, we paid her. She usually took four people, and we moved by car.

Before the trip, Hala warned us: “Look out the windows.” And I looked out the window. When we were already driving home, I saw that a drone had flown, and flown into the distance. Suddenly it came back from somewhere: it made a circle, turned around and hit the back of the car. A heat wave passed, and the windows flew out. I thought we were on fire. The impact deafened my hearing, and I almost stopped hearing.

Nothing happened to the man sitting in front. Hala was not hurt either. The girls sitting behind me — there were three of us — had glass fragments in their hair and on their heads. When I started telling them at home what had happened, I started to get hysterical, I burst into tears. Right after the impact, I was still holding on, and then it hit me.

The following days were quiet on that road. But on September 11, as they told me, five or six cars were damaged, and there were injuries. They even said that someone had half their head blown off.

How did you get home?

Hala immediately stepped on the gas. I shouted: “Hala, stop!”. I thought that now it might explode again. But she, on the contrary, stepped on the gas and drove on. The car rumbled, cracked, something dragged behind it.

Hala drove everyone home. Although, soon she died. She was standing by the window, getting her makeup done, and at that moment something hit. A piece of debris cut her neck.

You lived under occupation for over four years. How did you survive all this time?

We received Russian passports, so we had more opportunities, including a pension for my mother. There were also savings.

One day Volodya said to me: "Letʼs try making wurst." We bought everything we needed and started making black pudding. We tried it, and took it out to sell.

At that time, there was no market near the local hospital, and we were — I think — one of the first to start trading there. We stood opposite the antenatal clinic. People would come out of the hospital and buy, and buy, and buy again.

Thatʼs how we gradually started making money. Then we started baking “Napoleon”, pies, chebureks, pizza. We were already afraid to work in the central market. People would gather there in groups, drink [alcohol]. Drones would fly around.

Sometimes there were hands and heads lying on the ground.

The Oleshky Multidisciplinary Hospital. Natalia and Volodya were selling near it.

Олешківська багатопрофільна лікарня

Apartment building in Oleshky, September 2026.

Скриншот / Фото з аерозйомки 34 бригади морської піхоти “Борисфен”

And approximately how long have you been doing this?

Until the new year, until 2026. Then they stopped bringing food. There was nothing. And it was our own fault that we didnʼt stock up. We thought we would still have time.

Then the frost hit. There was no supply. The city was mined. We had money, but there was nothing to buy.

The fact that Oleshky is in a humanitarian catastrophe and it is impossible to leave the city has become the number one topic in recent weeks. However, as I heard from volunteers (or relatives of people who remain in Oleshky), the blockade has been in place there since at least the beginning of 2026. When did basic things disappear from the city?

After the flood, there was nothing: no electricity, no gas, no gasoline. Problems with food supplies began in December 2025. In January, there was nothing at all. At the beginning of March, they brought in a little food, but terrible things were happening there: a car might arrive, and people started to push and swear. The driver who arrived with the goods even fired a gun into the sky once as a warning.

Volodya and I would arrive at seven oʼclock. Sometimes we couldnʼt leave at all, because drones were constantly flying. Weʼd just get ready to leave, and the drone could already be flying back.

Then, when it got quiet, weʼd quickly get on our bikes and ride, trying to get through. And when we got there, there was already a huge queue.

People queue for food, May 1, 2026.

Facebook / Олешки / Головко Валентина

Facebook / Олешки / Головко Валентина

Arenʼt people afraid to gather?

We were afraid, but hunger was taking its toll.

In March and early April of this year, they started saying that bread would be delivered to the
“Almaz” store on Krasnoarmiyska. We decided to go. We left around 8 oʼclock.

As we were driving, we heard drones flying somewhere. We reached the store, and there was almost no one there, only a few people. Nearby stood a house broken in half. The men inside started shouting: "Get out of here! Theyʼre shelling here! The dead people are lying everywhere!"

I got up, and at that very moment a drone flew up. I saw it, stopped and started to cross myself. It flew on, not hitting us. We ran to hide at our neighborʼs — a woman who lived a few houses away from the store. We stayed at her place until it became safer. And closer to 9 oʼclock we looked out againб and there was a queue.

First of all, people rushed for wurst — there was a boiled big sausage, the cheapest one. By the time we waited for our turn, they had already started cutting it into small pieces, like about 300 grams for each.

When we got to the store, they were carrying out a wounded man in a wheelbarrow. He was covered in blood. Around the corner were two more dead people.

I cried and thought: "Was it really worth standing in this queue for 300 grams of sausage?"

The Russians targeted a point where townspeople were selling food, June 2025.

Facebook / Алла Лыхман-Малыш

Products in occupied Oleshky, March 2026.

Facebook / Алла Лыхман-Малыш

Now many are saying that even Ukrainian drones are unable to deliver provisions to the city. Although such attempts are supposedly being made. Do you know anything about this?

Back in the winter, they said that in the park near the hospital (where we were selling) something was being dropped — whether it was bread or water, I donʼt remember.

We ourselves wanted to write in the snow [that we needed food], but then we thought: "The house is so big that they would say that we want too much and drop some shell [on it]."

We were afraid. But the neighborʼs son climbed into the attic and wrote in paint that "two pensioners and a disabled person live here".

4

In April of this year, you finally decided to leave. How?

In the winter, a situation arose with my sisterʼs ex-husband. He was a drunkard, and men would constantly gather at his house and they drink together.

One night, something [a drone] flew in there, hit it from two sides. The ceiling completely collapsed, and they were crushed. They say they are still lying under that slab. I was very scared after that. I thought: "What if it crushes me too? Or the ceiling falls in?"

And on April 5, a drone flew into our house. After that, I started to be even more afraid. The dream was not a dream anymore — itʼs like youʼre sleeping, but youʼre constantly on the alert.

As soon as I hear the drone, I run around the house, and start hiding. Volodya tells me: "Lie down, and keep lying down. Donʼt move. We donʼt know, maybe they can see through the walls. Now everything is possible."

I thought that if I hear it flying, Iʼll know where to run if [it] stopped.

You say that a drone flew into your house on April 5. Tell us more about this.

I went outside, stood, bent down, and plucked a blade of grass in my palm. I looked and saw a drone flying. Then I thought, “Somewhere far away.” I raised my head and saw Volodya standing there, calling the cat to the barn, and the drone was hanging right above him. I said, “Volodya, run!”

We grabbed my mother’s arm and hurriedly ran into the house. And then we heard — bang! — the kitchen was being torn apart. The drone hit two or three fingers above the frame, and all the double-glazed windows fell apart (both small glass and large pieces). The place where the food was was covered in dust.

Tell us about your trip.

In April, my youngest son Vadym simply confronted me with the fact that he had arranged for us to leave. He is a volunteer, he organized everything by himself, paid for it, and was constantly in touch with the volunteer Oksana [Volzhyna]. She told us when to wait and when we could leave.

The three of us — me, my mother, and Volodya — went to the hospital, from where people were supposed to be evacuated. Drones were flying above us. My mother was walking and praying [for us]. But that day there was no departure.

In order not to drag my mother (who walked with a cane and could barely move) home, I asked the surgeon to leave her in the hospital. The next day, my mother was put in therapy, examined, and pneumonia was discovered. She was treated for 10 days, and we walked from home to the hospital and back every day.

Two weeks later, on April 27, we were finally told that we were leaving. My mother was taken from the hospital and taken away in an evacuation vehicle. My youngest son had already met us at the [Belarusian-Ukrainian] border.

On May 1, we were in Kyiv. The children took us to Mykolaiv, and here we are.

And now, as I understand, such evacuations are no longer possible at all?

I donʼt think so. Although, I was talking to one woman. She said that our local therapist, who can barely walk anymore — he literally leans on his bicycle — had apparently left.

She told me about two weeks ago. But I donʼt know exactly how he left. She said that maybe through Radensk. Maybe he walked, maybe he rode, I donʼt know exactly how.

Evacuation, during which 32 people were taken out of Oleshky, May 2026.

Facebook / Олешки / Головко Валентина

An evacuation bus was blown up by a mine, April 2026.

Facebook / Ksenia Arkhipova

Deaths from a Russian mine.

from Russian channels

In recent days, I have read many testimonies about what is happening in Oleshky now. In addition to hunger and the inability to leave the city, another pressing problem is the bodies of the dead on the streets. Was the situation similar when you were still in Oleshky?

When I was still in Oleshky, I was told that a drone wounded a woman who was going to the store near “Almaz”. And then people who were returning saw that the dogs were already tearing apart the body. People dug a hole and covered it there.

Volodya also saw the body lying there, and the dogs were gnawing at it. An acquaintance who is now in Oleshky says that people are afraid to pick up the bodies because they think they will be killed or injured themselves.

Thatʼs why the dead are lying there.

Do you currently have contact with anyone who remains in Oleshky? What do you know about the current situation in the city? How much has it changed compared to April?

Yes, Iʼm talking [to some]. They say that all the shops are closed. There is no food anywhere. Those who grew something are still somehow holding on: tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini. A good friend of mine, for example, dried zucchini.

Someone I talk to says that she also pack [food] in cans. Maybe some stocks of salt and sugar are left. My friend also says that some people have started going to places where you can still buy something: some take a little for themselves, and some — to sell later.

For example, 5 kilograms of flour can cost 100 000 rubles (thatʼs about $1000). They charge even more for cigarettes.

Are these ordinary residents? Did they get these products from somewhere?

Yes. Anyone who goes to Radensk brings something from there and sells it. People have taken risks before, going to neighboring cities. I personally know at least two people who disappeared without a trace on the road during a more “quiet” period.

Although I think that such prices are still very high.

Itʼs been almost half a year since you left. How have you settled in?

My two sons and their daughters-in-law live in Mykolaiv. They helped us with housing. They found an apartment, and gradually bought everything we needed. My sons are constantly helping.

I donʼt have a pension yet, but my mother and Volodya have pensions. Volodya also has a part-time job. Thank God, there is something to eat. We arrived [from Oleshky] very skinny, our pants were hanging down [from us]. I lost ten kilograms, and Volodya lost 14.

Now we have gained some weight. I go to the doctors. After the drone hit the car, I started forgetting a lot. Iʼll forget one thing, then — another. The doctor said that maybe itʼs dementia. Iʼm very scared. Even my motherʼs memory is better now than mine.

Before our conversation, you warned me that you are currently being treated for contusion, working with a psychologist, and that it is difficult for you to talk about your experiences in Oleshky without tears. How do you feel now after our conversation?

My eyes are watering now, but Iʼm holding on.