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The United Nations World Food Programme, or WFP, provided emergency food assistance to more than 400 people who managed to leave Oleshky, a Russian-occupied city in Ukraine's Kherson region. According to UN News, the evacuation took place during a brief local ceasefire. At the same time, the UN is pushing to restore electricity and heating supplies that have again been disrupted by attacks.
Hot meals for evacuated residents
Many residents arrived at a medical facility in Kyiv on October 31 in alarming condition. WFP said they had previously been trapped by fighting and had endured severe shortages of food, medical supplies, and other basic necessities for months.
Together with Iskra Dobra, a Ukrainian humanitarian organization and its national partner, WFP provided hot meals as soon as the residents arrived. Assistance will continue for an initial two-week period. WFP is also preparing to scale up support, as more residents are expected to be evacuated. Funding for this emergency food assistance came from the United States.
WFP Executive Director Luke J. Lindberg said the humanitarian pause gave people who had long faced fear, isolation, and deprivation an opportunity to reach safety and receive help. He acknowledged the role of United States First Lady Melania Trump in helping broker the ceasefire and expressed hope that it would lead to sustained humanitarian access. WFP had previously sought to assist Oleshky residents but was unable to gain access.
Opportunity to expand humanitarian access
UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher said the evacuation window, which ended on Sunday, demonstrated what could be achieved when the parties to the conflict put civilians first. He said aid could finally be delivered to Oleshky and called for the opportunity to be expanded to reach more people in different locations.
However, the evacuation took place amid an increasingly dangerous environment for civilians and humanitarian operations in Ukraine. As of September, WFP had recorded 134 security incidents affecting the agency and its partners since 2023. Fifty-seven incidents occurred this year, affecting distribution points, vehicles, warehouses, and staff.
Nationwide, WFP reaches more than half a million people each month through food and cash assistance. The program is primarily directed toward communities living near the front line.
Attacks disrupt electricity and heating
A spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General reported on Monday that attacks throughout the weekend continued to kill and injure civilians. The attacks also disrupted electricity and heating supplies as temperatures began to fall, with the Dnipro and Donetsk regions among the hardest hit.
Heat and power plants in Kyiv and Shostka were damaged. More than 650 villages in the Zhytomyr region also experienced power outages. The disruptions have increased pressure on communities that must again face winter amid the war.
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme, or UNDP, called for continued funding for Ukrainian communities. During a week-long visit, he met families in Kyiv who received only a few hours of electricity each day. He said damage to energy infrastructure directly affected children's ability to study, families' ability to stay warm, and communities' ability to work and plan their lives.
Energy equipment must be installed immediately
Ukraine's Ministry of Energy and UNDP have requested $500 million through the newly launched Ukraine Energy Installation Facility. The facility is intended to install and operate energy equipment already in Ukraine. Last year, UNDP support helped maintain electricity, heating, and water supplies for 6.6 million people.
Coster-Waldau said critical equipment was already available, but it must be installed and made operational immediately so that communities could receive the electricity and services they needed. He also met veterans retraining as humanitarian deminers and visited Ukraine's first specialized underwater demining training center, established by UNDP.
He described air attacks occurring day and night during his visit, while residents continued trying to work, create, and support one another. Although he called the resilience of communities inspiring, he warned that it should not be assumed to endure indefinitely without support.
