As the sun set over Arcadia, an area of beach clubs and bars on the outskirts of Odesa, a group of four friends in brightly coloured bikinis giggled as they towelled off after emerging from a dip in the Black Sea. At the nearby Prosecco Bar, two elderly men sipped sparkling wine from plastic flutes; at Ibiza, a seafront nightclub, a DJ played house beats.
It was possible for a moment to imagine that this was just the start of a normal summer night in this southern Ukrainian resort city, which usually draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year, and where the partying used to go on until breakfast.
