Telegram"The road is mined. So, we're stuck here," says Ludmilla, over the phone from the rooftop of a fire-damaged house in southern Ukraine. "People are trying their best to survive."
Her frontline home city of Oleshky has, according to multiple accounts, been largely cut off from fresh supplies of food or medicine for months.
Ludmilla describes being trapped there, and watching it decaying before her eyes.
Ukraine's commissioner for human rights has warned of a "humanitarian crisis."
Some recent deliveries do seem to have gone through, organised by volunteers or aid groups. Photos seen by the BBC show a crowd of people, many of them elderly, apparently fetching fresh supplies in a city square.
A relief even if prices were high, says Ludmilla, as people have had to forage for food in the abandoned homes of neighbours. Ludmilla is not her real name. Her name and the names of other residents who have spoken to the BBC have been changed to protect their identities.
Pasta and tinned goods, she tells us, have become a key staple for the roughly 2,000 remaining population.
Any attempt to leave Oleshky, say locals, is to gamble with your life along what's been dubbed "The Road of Death" - due to reports of heavy mining.
Oleshky is imprisoned by both geography and war; cut off by a river and wrecked bridges to the north – and dangerous or impassable roads inland.
All the while it is caught in the crossfire of opposing armies.
The city lies on the left or east bank of the Dnipro river and has been under Russian occupation since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian troops are dug in on the other side of the river, just outside Kherson - the big city they recaptured in November 2022, driving the Russians back across the river.
Residents, volunteers and officials report that, as last winter set in, snowfall made the danger points harder to see amid intensified mining.
The snow is gone but the mines, people fear, are still there.
Despite the dangers, there have been some successful, recent evacuations along the 'Road of Death', south-west along the route of the Dnipro river.
"Leaving Oleshky, everyone prayed to God that we wouldn't hit a mine," says Volodymyr, who's in his 50s.
Terrorised by drones and traumatised by seeing his neighbour's body carted away after she was hit by shelling, he says his family finally took the decision to leave.
"None of us could endure it any longer."
Volodymyr recounts being driven out in an ambulance in an evacuation arranged by volunteers. Even that was horrifying.
"The entire highway from Oleshky to Hola Prystan' is littered with burnt-out cars. Some of them burned with people still inside."
Satellite imagery from November shows at least eight damaged vehicles on a 1km stretch of the road heading out of Oleshky towards Kardashynka, which is on the way to Hola Prystan'.
There is also what seems to be a large scorch mark on the road between Kardashynka and Hola Prystan' which first appeared sometime in late January.
Verified footage from the same period shows a badly damaged vehicle which appears to have veered off the road; possibly corresponding to claims that vehicles, such as ambulances, have been blown up or strayed onto mines.
Similar scenes are replicated along the E97 road to the east of the city, although satellite imagery suggests the damage there dates back much further.
Small trench networks are visible at intersections on approaches to the city, indicating the area is militarized, but these have also been in place for many months.
The BBC has been in contact with seven people who tell us they are either still in Oleshky or recently evacuated.
The accounts we have gathered are through phone calls or messaging apps as well as questions sent through a Ukrainian official who has remained in touch with residents.
We have not been to fully verify each account but where possible, we have sought to corroborate stories through photos, location data and online records. Ludmilla's own home was destroyed, she says, when the Kakhovka Dam further up the Dnipro river was blown up under Russian occupation in June 2023, causing catastrophic flooding.
"I'm in someone else's house, which is also burned."
She won't move because there's no point, she explains, as the destruction is still going on everywhere.
Trees hit by shelling, we're told, are at least easier to break down for firewood.
Inside the city, Russian soldiers are believed to be holed up in buildings, hiding from roving Ukrainian drones.
"They sit in basements," says Ludmilla. "We don't see them but they're there."
We have heard claims that bodies can lie uncollected for days or, in the case of Russian soldiers, abandoned altogether by the military to rot.
The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, says he has appealed to Russian authorities for a "humanitarian corridor" to allow safe evacuations.
Lubinets accuses Russia of inflicting "deliberate terrorism" against civilians.
Ukrainian officials claim that both civilians and Russian soldiers, stationed in the city, have been left to their fate by the occupying authorities.
However, Russia's Embassy in London told the BBC that the "humanitarian difficulties" were because of "systematic strikes" by Ukrainian forces on the city.
The Russian-appointed governor of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, has accused Ukraine of destroying the city's schools and kindergartens - according to the Embassy.
But in his posts on the Telegram messaging app in April, Saldo does not appear to specifically mention the humanitarian situation at all.
The International Red Cross (ICRC) has said it is talking to authorities on both sides as it seeks further information about the situation in Oleshky.
It is difficult to assess the degree to which Russian troops, or Ukrainian drones, have left mines that have ended up posing a risk to civilians.
One Ukrainian soldier told the BBC that Ukraine had used mines to prevent Russia from delivering weapons to its fighters positioned inside the city.
But he claimed Ukrainian forces keep volunteers informed about safe routes while he accused Russia of "scattering" such explosives.
Some residents say they would like to leave, but that is not necessarily the case for everyone.
Elderly Ukrainians in front-line towns can be particularly reluctant to swap their homes for an unknown future.
Another resident called Hanna described recently seeing a drone hovering right above a woman aged about 90.
"She just looked up, waved her hand as if to say: 'Come what may' and hobbled on."
Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar, Anastasiia Levchenko, Mariana Matveichuk and Volodymyr Lozhko.
