Olena Palash heard a loud buzzing above her flat in the Ukrainian port of Odesa. It was 11pm. First one drone, and another, then more. Soon afterwards, one of the Shaheeds crashed into the children’s clinic where she works. An explosion shredded the building’s facade. The metal covering of a car park was remade into a spaghetti-like jumble. Another drone smashed into a nearby kindergarten.
The attack on 18 February knocked out a substation and plunged some of the city into darkness. Four people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl, and 80,000 were left without heat. Russia’s air war in the skies above Ukraine is nothing new. But since negotiations began between the US and Russia – talks from which Kyiv has been excluded – the raids have got dramatically worse.
Last week the Kremlin dispatched a record 267 drones on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Over the weekend two civilians have been killed, and at least 20 injured, in raids across the country. Each strike brings fresh misery to a war-weary population. And, latterly, they fan something else: anger at Donald Trump, whose humiliating treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday in the White House caused outrage and dismay.
Even before the car-crash encounter in the Oval Office, there was consternation over the US president’s increasing closeness to Moscow. Trump has blamed Ukraine for starting the war that began with Russia’s invasion and was accused by Zelenskyy of existing in a Russian “disinformation bubble”. On Friday, Washington terminated its programme to help repair Ukraine’s disrupted energy grid. Deliveries of US weapons could soon stop as well.
“Everything is back to front. After three years of war, I’m astounded. Trump doesn’t understand who the aggressor is,” Palash said, showing off her clinic’s gutted laboratory. Air conditioners dangled from the ceiling, next to a broken blood-testing machine. “I thought Trump understood justice. Someone has given him wrong information,” she said, asking: “The Russians destroy everything and we are the aggressors?”
“This was the best children’s medical clinic in Ukraine. We made it with love. The work of five years got destroyed in one minute.” Odesa’s residents were bleary-eyed and on edge, she said, bracing for the next impact. “Shaheed drones fly over us every night. Rockets hit frequently. From Crimea it takes a minute to arrive. There’s no time to hide. We didn’t expect a drone attack on our workplace. It was terrible.”
The attack on Odesa’s Kyivsky district involved 15 drones – a typical Kremlin swarm tactic. It came on the same day that Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told his US counterparts that Moscow did not target civilian infrastructure. Previously, on 31 January, three ballistic missiles had crashed into the city’s historic Unesco-listed centre. The first exploded in front of the neo-classical Bristol hotel, used by foreign visitors, and adorned with statues.
The blast ripped the face and left arm from a white-painted caryatid. The second missile plunged through the roof of the hotel’s conference room, gouging a large hole. The third careered into a corner. The hotel’s interior was wrecked. Rubble cascaded down its sweeping staircase and into guest bedrooms. Remarkably, no one was hurt. A Swedish delegation staying there had gone out to dinner.
Next door, the ceiling of the Pushkin Museum was yanked off. A statue of the great Russian poet – who lived in Odesa in 1836-7 – toppled over. The explosion shattered the stained-glass windows of the city’s philharmonic orchestra concert hall and bowled over its bulky wooden doors. The Italian gothic edifice – the city’s stock exchange before the Russian revolution and communism – was left cracked and damaged.
“This is brutal mafia behaviour,” said Ivan Liptuga, the head of Odesa city council’s department for international cooperation, culture and marketing. He described the strike as “jewellery work” – in other words, chillingly precise. How was the city’s mood? “They want us to capitulate. We feel tired and that the war should stop. Of course, when people are dying, restoration of monuments is not the second or third priority.”
Liptuga said he struggled to make sense of the dizzying events of the past two weeks, which have seen the US dump Ukraine as an ally and embrace Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “If you try to understand what is going on, you end up in conspiracy,” he said. “How do you account for Trump’s friendship with Putin? Even conservative politicians in the US can’t explain it.” He added: “In my view, Russia’s invasion was a strategic mistake.”
In spring 2022, Russian troops tried to capture Odesa, but became bogged down in the southern city of Mykolaiv. After that, Odesa was initially spared the worst of Russia’s bombardment. Some ascribed this to sentimentalism on Putin’s part: Odesa is a Russian-speaking city, with Greek and Ottoman roots, founded by Catherine the Great. It was home to celebrated Soviet-era writers including Isaac Babel, Konstantin Paustovsky and the poet Anna Akhmatova.
These days, though, Odesa is targeted as frequently as other big Ukrainian cities. “He doesn’t give a shit about Russian culture. We are talking about Putin here, not Dostoevsky,” the local journalist Misha Shtekel said. The Russian president’s goal, he suggested, was to capture Odesa and deprive Ukraine of access to the Black Sea; in the meantime, Putin wanted to wreck the country’s economy and disrupt bulk cargo ships that transport goods along a “grain corridor”.
On Saturday evening a Russian ballistic missile struck Odesa’s port. It damaged infrastructure and a commercial vessel owned by a European company, under the flag of Panama. Two port employees were hurt. Despite strikes on shipping, Ukraine’s sea-based exports have almost returned to pre-2022 levels. Ukrainian sea drone raids have forced Russia’s Black Sea fleet to leave the port of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea.
Shtekel said Odesans – known for their sarcasm and wit – had “got used to everything”. He explained: “The Russians are managing to pierce our defences somehow. But you grow accustomed to shelling. I’m worried about my cat and my future. You feel grateful you are alive.” He linked the recent uptick in attacks, during which the neighbouring port of Chornomorsk has also been hit, to the rapid and troubling detente between the US and Russia.
Exhibits from the wrecked Pushkin Museum have been transferred by van to the city’s house of literature. Its director, Tetiana Liptuga, said the windows of her building – all 23 of them – were blown out during an attack in July 2023. She opposed a plan by what she called Ukrainian “activists” to remove the city’s Pushkin statues. This has not yet happened. “Pushkin is not responsible for Russia’s misdeeds,” she said. “He’s still great.”
Her storeroom is now full of displaced Pushkin memorabilia: busts, old lithographs, and copies of the poet’s work in multiple languages. The director’s colleague Tetiana Ostrovska said she was optimistic a peace deal could be reached. “War is pointless. We need quiet so we can rebuild. People here are energetic. This is a multicultural place with many ethnic groups. At the moment Russia’s war strangles everything,” she said.
Back at the children’s clinic, Palash suggested the Kremlin and the White House were working together to get rid of Zelenskyy. “This is our affair. Zelenskyy is our president. He got 73% of the vote. We should decide,” she said, adding: “Trump just wants our resources.” Her colleague Serhii Vitynchak agreed. “Ukraine has to be Ukraine. We won’t compromise. We have to keep going until Russia is defeated.”
Article by:Source: Luke Harding in Odesa. Photographs by Alessio Mamo
