Why Odessa now? Russia targets coastal city as revenge — and a warning
Airstrikes on the port city of Odessa have become more frequent over the past three weeks, most often hitting residential buildings, shopping malls, and critical infrastructure rather than military targets. The missiles arrive from naval vessels on the Black Sea and across the sea from the nearby Crimean coast, with the toll including multiple civilian deaths and a growing sense of panic. In Odessa, fears are rising that it could follow Mariupol as Vladimir Putin’s next principal target.
Since the beginning of the war, more than half of the population — about 500,000 people — have left the city, even as others are flowing into Odessa from other war-torn regions in southern Ukraine, where the situation is even worse: people from Nikolayev, Kherson, Crimea, and even from Moldovan Transnistria.
Ukrainian forces resisting in and around the city of Mykolaiv, 80 miles up the coast, have prevented Odessa from being encircled by Russian forces.
But now, after the fall of Mariupol, 380 miles to the east, the port city is increasingly seen as the next target for Putin.
Not surprisingly, the "pearl by the sea" is unusually quiet ahead of the summer tourist season. In a report from what is still considered the prime resort capital of Ukraine, newspaper RBC writes that only the legendary Privoz market and a few other cafes on Deribasovskaya Street are reminders of what Odessa was like in peaceful times.
An ancient Greek city with a uniquely modern culture and ethnically diverse composition, Odessa was as important to the Soviet Union as it is to Ukraine — and apparently, to Putin too. There is no shortage of symbolism: the people of Odessa are considered freedom-loving and open-minded. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, when Putin tried to seize major cities such as Mariupol and Kharkiv, and hold pseudo-referendums, Odessa was a non-starter and Russian troops were always unwelcome there.
According to Sergei Bratchuk, advisor to the head of the Odessa regional military administration, the purpose of the Russian army is to put psychological pressure on the residents and defenders of the region — but also to take revenge for the fact that, despite everything, Odessa remains a proudly Ukrainian city.
“So, unfortunately, we know that this will continue and there is a very high probability of more missile strikes,” Bratchuk says. “This is all revenge from the enemy, to show Odessa. But it means that we are on the right track and that we will endure it all."
The other reason is more strategic than symbolic, and extends beyond Ukraine: Moscow is bombing Odessa in order to intimidate Moldova, whose border lies only 35 miles away.
Moldova has its own internal battle with pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway republic of Transnistria. The opposition leader in Transnistria, Gennady Chorbu, has warned that Putin may call on pro-Russian leadership in the territory to provoke a conflict with Moldova.
Thus for the Kremlin, Odessa is both a potential “next” symbolic victory after Mariupol, and the gateway to a wider, regional war — if that’s what Putin has in mind.
— Anna Akage
• More than 1,000 have surrendered in Mariupol: Russian authorities say that a total of 1,730 soldiers have now surrendered since Monday, after the Russian army took over the last holdout in the strategic port city.
• Shift to a “smaller” war: A new Pentagon report has found that Russia is continuing to reduce the scale of its military actions toward more "small" operations, which is another sign that it has lowered the ambitions of its invasion of Ukraine.
— Read all the latest at War in Ukraine, Day 85 —
• North Korea may have “welcome” Biden with missile tests: According to the White House, North Korea may be preparing for missile and nuclear tests in the next few days, as the U.S. President Joe Biden heads to South Korea and Japan on Friday.
• Sri Lanka defaults on debt for first time: Sri Lanka’s worst financial crisis in decades has caused the country to default on its debt for the first time in its history. The country is already in talks with the International Monetary Fund to negotiate a bailout and find common ground with its creditors.
• China warns U.S. over Taiwan support: China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi warned the U.S. over its increased support for Taiwan which could “lead to a dangerous situation.”
• Global stock markets in hot water: Global stock markets fell sharply again as investors and traders fear rising inflation and stagflation and move back from riskier investments. On Wednesday, the U.S. Dow Jones set his highest drop since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020.
• Vincent Van LEGO: Danish toy maker LEGO has unveiled a new set, inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s 1889 painting The Starry Night. Reproducing the masterpiece will take 2,136 bricks, $169.99, and a lot of patience.
Spanish daily ABC devotes its front page to the brief return of former king of Spain Juan Carlos to the country to visit his family, after spending nearly two years in self-imposed exile in the United Arab Emirates. Carlos had abdicated in favor of his son in 2014 after a series of scandals, including a corruption investigation involving his daughter’s husband.
Sisu
Finns are known to be stoic, hard-working people. They even have a word for it: “sisu” — which has no direct equivalent in English but conveys notions of determination and resilience in the face of adversity. “I think that every Finn has sisu in them,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in a recent interview, in the context of her country renouncing neutrality and applying to join the NATO military alliance. “No matter the difficulty of the time, we face it to ensure that the next generation has a better future,” she added.
In Shanghai, a brewing expat exodus as COVID crackdown shows “real” China
Not only strict rules of freedom of movement as part of Zero-COVID policy but also an increase in censorship has raised many questions for the expat population in the megacity of 26 million that had long enjoyed a kind of special status in China as a place of freedom and openness. Some are planning on leaving the Chinese megacity within the next year, reports Lili Bai in Chinese-language digital media The Initium.
💼 According to China’s official statistics in 2021, there are more than 160,000 expats living in Shanghai, most of them working in finance, tech, internet and manufacturing. “(Shanghai is) the most open and tolerant city in China,” says Wilson, a Scot who has lived in Shanghai for 17 years. Félix arrived there in 2018, when he was 28. He works in a leading French tech company and has set a goal to stay in Shanghai for at least 10 years. But now, the six-week-long lockdown has shifted the landscape of the city, and expats like Félix and Wilson are thinking of ways to flee this city they once loved so much.
🤐 Wilson has realized recently that the positive sentiments he built up over 17 years for Shanghai could be undermined at any moment: a single concert could catch the attention of the police, a single retweet can get you noticed by public security, and a single policy can make homeless people freeze and ordinary people starve. “It is self-evident to us foreigners that public opinion is constantly being tightened in China. Everyone knows that the cost of communication and the risk is much greater nowadays than when I first came to Shanghai,” Wilson said.
✈️ In mid-April, “This is Shanghai,” a platform owned by HK Focus Media, conducted a survey of 950 foreigners living in Shanghai and found that the number of foreigners in the city may be reduced by half in the coming year, with 48% of respondents said they would leave Shanghai within the next year, if not immediately, while 37% said they would stay until the pandemic was over and see if the situation in Shanghai would improve before deciding whether to stay or go.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
"A wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean, of Ukraine ... Anyway."
— Former U.S. President George W. Bush made an epic slip of the tongue during a speech Wednesday night. Speaking about Vladimir Putin, Bush said the systematic disqualification of political opponents resulted in “an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” Of course, if that war in 2003 was started by “one man,” his name was George W. Bush
A Ukrainian soldier salutes during the funeral service of 95th Separate Air Assault Brigade officer, Lt. Denys Antipov, who died while defending Dovhenke in the Kharkiv region. — Photo: Evgen Kotenko/Ukrinform/ZUMA
✍️ Newsletter by Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger
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