Odesa, a Russian-speaking port city in southwest Ukraine and an important strategic target in the Russian military offensive, is preparing for war. Fighting has not yet started in the city but the war is already creating rifts within families and among friends. FRANCE 24’s Gwendoline Debono report
Galina Djikaeva, an actress, has joined the effort to defend Odesa against a Russian invasion, making sure the Ukrainian soldiers in the city have everything they need. She says she is proud to see Odesa so united, but that in her family, the situation is not the same.
Djikaeva's mother and brother – a police officer – live in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
“In the very first days of the war, my mother told me that it was the Americans who bombed us," Djikaeva said. "My brother should be punished because he is a collaborator and supporter of this [Russian] regime," she added.
“I don’t blame my mother, she is old," she said, "but my brother is an adult, able to think; He didn’t clean the streets, he served in the police."
However, not everybody in Odesa intends to resist the advance of Russian troops.
“What I think of Russia has not changed today, I don’t see Russia as an aggressor. I believe that in a month, maybe a little more, the military actions will stop and more reasonable people will take the place of our current leaders,” said Alexander, a resident of the city. “For me it’s the defenders who are the danger, much more than the so-called aggressors.”
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