Barely 12 hours after Moscow signed a deal with Ukraine to allow monitored grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports, Russia targeted the country’s main port of Odesa – through which grain shipments would take place – with cruise missile strikes.
The attack raised new doubts about the viability of the deal, which was intended to release about 20m tonnes of grain to ward off famine in parts of the developing world.
In one of the largest attacks on the city since the war began, the airstrikes rattled buildings in the city centre and sent up a plume of smoke that was visible across the city.
On Odesa’s seafront, beachgoers applauded as the city’s air defences brought down two of four missiles, the remaining two hitting the port.
The attack on Odesa was one of a series of Russian strikes across Ukraine, with the city of Kropyvnytsky being hit by 13 missiles on Saturday morning.
The new attacks came hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed deals with the UN and Turkey that were intended to avert a global food crisis. The agreements supposedly clear the way for the shipment of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain and some Russian exports of grain and fertiliser held up by the war.
Spared so far from Russian invasion and the direct artillery attacks that have struck Ukraine’s other coastal cities, Odesa is still threatened by rockets from submarines and strategic bombers, while its busy port has been strangled until now by the Russian naval blockade.
Once considered one of Russia’s principal military objectives in its invasion, the cosmopolitan port city with its pastel buildings and streets lined with horse chestnut, mulberry and white acacia, is a place in limbo.
“Ideologically, Putin views Odesa as the heart of his ‘Novorossiya’ strategy,” wrote Christine Karelska for the Visegrad/Insight website last week. “He is entrapped by the illusion that Odesa’s residents are waiting for the Russian occupiers to ‘liberate’ them.
“From a geopolitical point of view, Odesa is vital for other regional players. A hypothetical invasion of this city will destabilise much of the region and open up neighbouring countries for an attack. Moldova will undoubtedly be next if Odesa falls.”
In the meantime life, as in other Ukrainian cities one step removed from the immediate frontline, continues but in an attenuated fashion.
On Odesa’s boardwalk, Oleg Demyanenko is standing, elbows resting on the balustrade, looking out over a Black Sea forbidden to swimmers because of the risk of mines.
Despite the dolphinarium behind him, the cafes, and the Nemo hotel, he is here because the seafront is somewhere he can visit for free. “I can’t spend any money,” he explains. “I’m on a tight budget.”
Demyanenko was evacuated from the frontline city of Mykolaiv because of Russian attacks, but he still has his job in a building supply company. His wife, however, has lost hers. Like many in Odesa they are struggling to make ends meet.
For their 15-year-old daughter, it is hardest of all. Her boyfriend has fled to Germany. Her friends have dispersed or remain in Mykolaiv. She feels like she is marking time with no end in sight.
“In the morning I wake up. Sometimes I paint a little,” she told the Observer. “Then I walk around Odesa. In the evening I walk again. Then I talk to my boyfriend on social media. It makes me sad.”
A little further along the sea front Hennadiy, who declines to give his family name, is fishing with friends, pulling a crab on to the decking. He has lived in Odesa for more than 30 years after relocating to Ukraine from Dushanbe via Baku, owner of a wood-turning business that makes chairs.
“I used to have a big workforce. People are asking me for work. But I have to say I don’t have any jobs. I still have the wood I bought before the war broke out untouched. I don’t want to sell my business, because I invested so much in it over the years.”
The recapture by Ukrainian forces of nearby Snake Island – a strategic point taken by the Russians early in the war – has relieved some of the pressure on Odesa, which many had believed was vulnerable to an amphibious assault. But with Russian warships still dominating the Black Sea and much of the coastline either in Russian hands or under threat, Odesa’s thin simulacrum of normality persists in a state of constant threat, as Saturday’s attack proved.
Like other Ukrainian cities, Odesa’s social, economic and cultural life has been hollowed out in the past five months of conflict as 300,000 people left the city and the wider region, many to flee abroad.
“It was a massive economic shock at the beginning,” says Dmytro Radulov, chief economist in the city’s administration. Many of the big companies and factories shut down. “Smaller businesses could not get supplies.”
“We have to accept the war,” he says. “We have to live with this until next year, maybe years. We have to fight for our country. But we have to live. We have to do business but we also have to realise that this war is at the city’s door.”
And some are not convinced that Russia has given up on its ambitions for the city. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov last week said that Russia was not finished expanding its territorial ambitions in Ukraine.
Another danger is that even if Russian forces do not move on Odesa, if Ukraine fails to shift Russian troops further along the south coast, the city will remain in its squeezed and vulnerable position, always open to attack and to continuing blockade.
On the cultural front too, Odesa’s horizons have shrunk, although it has fared better than many of Ukraine’s cities, managing to stage productions at the opera house, despite challenging circumstances.
On Friday, the city’s ballet dancers – the only troupe still working in Ukraine – were rehearsing for a performance of Orpheus and Eurydice. While the opera house can hold more than 1,000 people, its basement shelter is big enough for only 450, including artists, limiting the number of tickets that can be sold.
“It’s very difficult for the artists,” says Garri Sevoyan, the head of the dance troupe, as they rehearsed. “They need to practise every day. A lot of the company have evacuated abroad and four of the dancers are serving in the army.
“We have had to change our programme as performances are affected by the air raid alarm. Take Don Quixote. It’s usually three acts and lasts two and a half hours. I’ve had to reduce to two acts and a one-and-a-half-hour programme. And we have to finish before curfew.”
And while some musical repertoire and drama have managed to finish their performances in the air raid shelter, for dancers who need to be warmed up both physically and mentally, it is more difficult.
“Last week we had to stop for an hour and 10 minutes. When we returned and started the ballet, an air raid alarm went off again. It was so close to curfew that we couldn’t finish.”
Sevoyan adds that he has had to reduce the programme by 60%, although some ballets in their repertoire, including works by Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, have been removed because of cultural sensitivities.
Sevoyan is aware that, while they are trying to continue, there is a risk that they are treading water while the war goes on.
“We are trying to move forward but it is very difficult. Right now we are just hoping for victory.”
