Oleshky: Council of Europe commissioner says people lack food, medicine and water; Obozrevatel headline says people are eating dogs

Two accounts, one minute apart. On 25 September, Ukrainska Pravda and Obozrevatel both reported on Oleshky, an occupied town on the left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson region. They describe different levels of crisis.

Attribution differs. Ukrainska Pravda names the commissioner and his office in its first sentence. Obozrevatel's headline carries the starkest claim in quotation marks. Hasanenko's name comes only after a dash in the body, and the report we hold does not give her position.

No one is named as the cause. Neither report, as we hold it, says who is causing the shortages or blocking aid.

What is not settled - Whether this is shortage or famine. Only one report says famine, and it cites one person. - What the commissioner's statement says in full. We hold only its opening line. - What people in Oleshky say. No report we hold quotes anyone inside the town. - What the Russian occupation authorities say. We hold no report from them.

What this is about. Oleshky is a Ukrainian town under Russian military control. A European human-rights official says its people are running short of food, medicine and water.

How it got here. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and backed armed separatists in eastern Ukraine that year. In February 2022 it launched a full-scale invasion. Within days its forces took much of Kherson region in the south, including Oleshky, a town on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river opposite the city of Kherson. In November 2022 Ukraine retook Kherson city and the right bank. Russian forces pulled back across the river. Since then the Dnipro has been the front line, and Oleshky has sat on the Russian-held side of it, within reach of the fighting across the water. In June 2023 the Kakhovka dam upstream was destroyed and the lower Dnipro flooded, Oleshky included. Ukraine and Russia each blame the other for the dam.

Who is involved. Russia controls the town and runs it through its own appointed administration; in 2022 it declared Kherson region annexed, a claim Ukraine and most of the world reject. Ukraine regards the town as its own territory under occupation. The Council of Europe is a 46-member human-rights organisation in Strasbourg, separate from the European Union. It expelled Russia in March 2022. Its Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O'Flaherty, in post since 2024, has no power to enforce anything; the office exists to monitor and to speak.

What is at stake. Civilians in a town on a front line can only get aid, or get out, if the forces on both sides let them. Humanitarian access and evacuation need agreement across the river.

Where it stands. The commissioner has called for aid access and safe evacuation. We hold no report that anyone has answered that call.