The operation was carried out by guardsmen of the 11th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine named after Mykhailo Hrushevsky and the 34th Kherson Regiment of the National Guard of Ukraine, Interior Minister Ivan Vyhovsky said. In coordination with the 30th Marine Corps, the 34th Separate Marine Brigade "Borysfen" and the 79th Border Detachment of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, the drones delivered about 400 packages with a total weight of almost 4 tons. The shipments contained food, medicines and kits for children.
The previous delivery took place on September 27, the Kherson Regional Military Administration reported. That cargo was also delivered using heavy drones and distributed across one hundred points in the city.
According to Vyhovsky, Russian forces are effectively holding Oleshky residents hostage — without food, water or medicines. Ukraine's Interior Ministry claims that Russians are obstructing the delivery of aid, including by shooting down drones carrying food and seizing delivered packages.
In late September, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Ukraine was allegedly obstructing aid deliveries to Oleshky. The city has been under Russian occupation since the first days of the full-scale invasion and is located on the left bank of the Dnipro River opposite Kherson.
As journalist from the Kherson region Olena Hnitytska, who maintains contact with Oleshky residents, told The Insider, aid deliveries had not been possible since May. The last time a cargo was delivered more or less normally was at the end of May 2026. After that, volunteers twice tried to repeat the operation — in June and in September — but both ended tragically: in one case a drone attacked the convoy, in the other a vehicle hit a mine. There were dead and wounded among the volunteers and the people they were trying to evacuate.
According to estimates by those who remain in the city, there may be about two thousand people in Oleshky, of whom 50–70 are children. The exact number is difficult to establish because people practically do not go outside. Food is bartered at improvised meeting places — people gather quickly, exchange whatever they can and disperse just as quickly, because there are very many drones in the city. There is practically no electricity, gas, water or communications in Oleshky.
Attempts by international organizations to negotiate with the Russian authorities on the evacuation of civilians from the occupied city have so far yielded no results.