In the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky, the question facing civilians is no longer simply where their next meal will come from. It is whether they can find food at all and whether trying to leave in search of it could cost them their lives.

Oleshky, in Ukraine’s Kherson region, had a pre-war population of roughly 24,000. Today, around 1,700 people remain, including 47 children, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. The city has no stable electricity, water or heating, while years of war and occupation have left much of its infrastructure destroyed.

The food situation has deteriorated particularly sharply since May. Residents told Reuters that the last deliveries to a local store took place that month. Since then, many have survived on vegetables grown in gardens, dwindling household supplies and old food stocks.

The crisis is made worse by the danger of leaving. Residents travelling roughly 20 kilometres to the nearby town of Radensk in search of food must cross routes affected by mines and attack drones. One woman interviewed by Reuters was injured by a landmine while returning from such a journey. Locals have reportedly begun referring to the route as the “road of death.”

That leaves civilians trapped between two dangers: staying in a city where food and medicine are disappearing, or attempting to travel through a dangerous war zone to obtain them.

Humanitarian assistance has also become a point of contention. Ukrainian authorities say they have attempted to deliver food to Oleshky by drone and have proposed evacuation routes for civilians. Ukraine claims that Russian forces had obstructed aid deliveries, including by shooting down food-carrying drones and confiscating supplies. Russia has acknowledged that food and medical shortages are critical but has blamed Ukraine for obstructing deliveries. Russian defence authorities and Russian-installed officials in occupied Kherson did not respond to its requests for comment.

The humanitarian crisis has now acquired a significant legal dimension. Global Rights Compliance, an organisation specialising in international humanitarian and human rights law, published an analysis on October 6 arguing that the conditions in Oleshky should be examined as a possible case of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. It points to the deprivation of food, water and medical supplies, obstruction of humanitarian assistance, dangerous evacuation routes and what it describes as a prolonged pattern of deprivation.

International humanitarian law prohibits the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. It also imposes obligations on occupying powers concerning the provision and facilitation of humanitarian relief for civilian populations. Global Rights Compliance argues that the circumstances in Oleshky may therefore raise serious questions under both international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Importantly, however, its assessment is a legal analysis rather than a judicial determination that a starvation crime has been established.

The urgency is increasing as winter approaches. Reuters reports that residents’ homegrown supplies of vegetables are running out, while access to fuel, medicine and basic utilities remains severely restricted.

Oleshky therefore represents more than another story of wartime deprivation. It raises a fundamental question under the laws of war: when civilians are deprived of the necessities required to survive, and routes to obtain those necessities are also blocked, where does military necessity end and unlawful starvation begin?

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