European Parliament Vice President Picierno goes on hunger strike demanding humanitarian truce for Oleshky
Vice President of the European Parliament Pina Picierno. Photo: Vice President's Facebook page
Vice President of the European Parliament Pina Picierno announced a hunger strike to draw the international community's attention to the plight of residents in Russian-occupied Oleshky, Kherson region. She calls for an immediate humanitarian truce, delivery of food and medicine to the city, and the safe evacuation of civilians.
According to Rubryka, European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno announced on social media that she has launched a hunger strike to highlight the humanitarian crisis in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky and to support international efforts to prevent a tragedy.
According to the European Parliament Vice President, thousands of people remain trapped in Oleshky without regular access to food and medicine. The city remains under Russian occupation, while the surrounding minefields make exit attempts life-threatening.
"The mined areas make escape extremely dangerous: those who stay risk dying of hunger, while those who try to leave risk their lives. To draw international attention to this emergency, I have announced a hunger strike. But this battle cannot be mine alone," the European official noted.
The Vice President emphasized that she does not want to remain the sole participant in this initiative. She called on European organizations and citizens to join the nonviolent protest to amplify focus on the needs of the occupied city's residents.
Pina Picierno called for an immediate humanitarian truce that would allow authorities to:
- Supply civilians with food and medicine
- Organize a safe departure for those wishing to leave Oleshky
"We must demand an immediate humanitarian truce, the entry of food and medicine, and the possibility of safely evacuating civilians who want to leave the city," she stressed.
According to the official, participating in this action also serves to support Pope Leo XIV and all those working to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.
"The population of Oleshky cannot be abandoned. It is time to act together, so that diplomacy produces concrete results and no one is left to die in silence," noted Pina Picierno.
Background
The situation in Oleshky, Hola Prystan, Stara Zburivka, and Nova Zburivka in the Kherson region is of particular concern, as the basic conditions needed to meet residents' needs, including children's, are entirely absent. Russian occupiers artificially block people from leaving and create obstacles to the supply of basic consumer goods, food products, and medicines.
The population has dropped from 40,000 to around 6,000 people, and in the city of Oleshky specifically, from 24,000 to roughly 2,000.
In May, the Ukrainian side held negotiations regarding the urgent humanitarian evacuation of civilians from temporarily occupied settlements in the Kherson region, where active fighting created a critical situation. This specifically concerns Oleshky, Hola Prystan, Stara Zburivka, and Nova Zburivka, where people remain without food, drinking water, and medicine.
On October 4, guardsmen from the 11th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine named after Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and the 34th Kherson Regiment conducted a second successful operation delivering humanitarian aid to Oleshky.
As Rubryka reported, approximately two thousand residents of Oleshky have lived without food, drinking water, or medicine under strict Russian occupation control since April 2026. The town fell under occupation in the first days of the full-scale invasion. Since spring 2026, the situation has deteriorated sharply: residents face severe shortages of supplies while Russia blocks routes to Ukrainian-controlled territory, leaving two thousand people under siege.
