ODESSA — A storm warning has been issued for the beaches of Odessa. On this winter Saturday morning, a crowd of onlookers who have come to enjoy the ocean spray stands at a safe distance from the raging Black Sea. There are young couples wrapped up in their cloaks, soldiers on leave lost in their thoughts, quiet retirees and their grandchildren and cats observing a fisherman. A flock of white seagulls stands out against large black clouds, while an itinerant pianist ties everything together with a sumptuous musical thread of poetry.
An air raid siren suddenly rips through the serene scene.
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Phones vibrate in pockets: according to the government app, a Russian bomber is lurking around Crimea, more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) away, and the whole of southern Ukraine is on high alert. This is not enough to trigger panic among the Odessites, who have been hardened by two years of war. While some cautiously return to their cars, most continue strolling on the beach. Nonetheless, a veil of weariness spreads across the seaside.
“Since the failure of our army’s counteroffensive this summer, people have started to understand that the war is going to be a long one. And it’s getting closer. One of our best friends just lost her boyfriend in a trench in Donbass. The media are flooded with heartbreaking stories,” said student Sofia Azimova, battling the freezing wind with a cup of hot coffee. “We hope that this third year of war will bring us victory but, more realistically, we will mostly pray to survive it.”
Under a snow-laden sky, two bulk carriers leave the port of Odessa on the gray waves of the open sea. One, registered in Liberia, is heading for Barcelona. The other, under the flag of Barbados, heads toward Romania.
Last year was marked by Kyiv’s failure to gain the upper hand on the battlefield, but still, it wasn’t a complete loss. Far from the stalemate of Donbass and the hopelessness slowly affecting the Allies, Ukrainian troops have achieved a feat: breaking the Russian blockade in the Black Sea.
A breath of oxygen thanks to the port
The embargo was introduced in July, after Moscow left the grain agreement signed a year earlier that allowed Ukraine to export its agricultural production despite the war. The deal’s termination cost the Kremlin dearly. Equipped with floating drones and Western missiles, Kyiv’s military forced part of Moscow’s Navy to flee Crimea to take refuge in Russian ports. From the end of August, the first commercial ships were setting sail from Odessa, now free to carry any kind of goods.
At this rate, the city’s three ports will return this year to a level of activity similar to that before the war.
“Traffic is increasing by 40% per month. At this rate, the city’s three ports will return this year to a level of activity similar to that before the war, which will considerably reduce the burden on the country’s economy. Loading a ship is equivalent to several thousand trucks or dozens of trains,” says Dmytro Barinov, deputy director of the port of Odessa, from his office covered with maritime maps.
The Ukrainian victory in the Black Sea should not only provide a breath of fresh air to the agricultural sector but also resuscitate the metal industry, whose steel has remained docked since the start of the Russian invasion. The revival of the Odessa port could boost Ukraine’s GDP by around eight points.
Disfigured splendor
A new anti-aircraft alert resonates. Despite the renewed maritime traffic, the “pearl of the Black Sea” has not recovered its appeal as a link between Ukraine and the wider world.
Odessa’s famous steps, immortalized by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin in 1925, no longer escort travelers from the port to the city. Surrounded by barbed wire, the stairway decays in front of a hotel charred by a missile strike. The city center’s avenues — architectural splendors inherited from the Russian Empire — are sparse. Most of the neoclassical facades, of French and Italian inspiration, remain barred with boards.
Even far from the front, every Ukrainian goes to bed at night without knowing for certain whether he will wake up the next day.
Just before New Year’s Eve, a round of bombings served as a reminder that, even far from the front, every Ukrainian goes to bed at night without knowing for certain whether he will wake up the next day. That morning, the residents of the peaceful Moldavanka district were awakened by an anti-aircraft alert. Many of them, tired of false alarms, didn’t get out of bed.
On the corner of Seredyna Street, Yurii and Ludmilla rushed down the steps of their residential tower with their two children. The family, who fled Kherson for Odessa after their house was bombed, had vowed never to underestimate the Russian threat and rushed to take refuge in the underground car park.
They had barely reached the ground floor when they were shaken by an explosion. A cruise missile had just destroyed five stories of the building, killing four of their neighbors. Yurii, Ludmila and their children, miraculously protected by a load-bearing wall, emerged unharmed.
“Once again we have nowhere to go. It’s a nightmare,” says the couple, who returned to recover some items from the rubble.
“We must negotiate with Moscow”
In Odessa, just like in the rest of the country, Russian bombs strike arbitrarily. Even institutions that were known to have close ties with Russia have been hit. Last July, the Transfiguration Cathedral, which is affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and hosts the tomb of a famous 19th-century Russian governor, was torn apart by a missile.
Today the building is crumbling under the snow, with its religious frescoes scratched by metal shards.The walls of the cathedral were not the only ones that caved in under the impact of the explosion.
“We must negotiate with Moscow. Russia has significant amounts of weapons. Soon there will be only women and children left in Ukraine. Our demographics are collapsing,” says the priest, Myroslav, from an underground chapel where mass is now held. Under gilded iconostasis, a children’s choir sings a liturgical chant, surrounded by swirls of incense. Just for a moment, the congregation escapes from the tumult of war.
Ukraine is still united, but the first cracks are starting to appear.
“Russia must give back the territory it took from us and, in return, Ukraine could become a neutral country. There was a time when our country had set a non-alignment rule with this or that bloc,” says the cleric, referring to a law passed in 2010 under former President Viktor Yanukovych that was withdrawn after the Maidan Revolution, and which aimed to end to the early stages of Ukraine’s NATO membership.
Father Myroslav’s point of view is shared only by a minority in Odessa, but it is not that marginal. According to a poll carried out last summer, 60% of Ukrainians are in favor of continuing the war until their country regains its sovereignty, Crimea included, compared to 70% a year earlier. But now, 31% of Ukrainians support a negotiated ceasefire.
Divisions and corruption scandals
Ukraine is still united, but the first cracks are starting to appear. Corruption scandals are multiplying, triggering exasperation among the public, which is already concerned about rumors of massive mobilization. To compensate for the scale of the massacre on the front line — nearly 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded in two years — Kyiv is preparing to conscript nearly half a million civilians.
An unpopular measure, for which the government tried to lay the blame on the military staff. The recent dismissal of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the very popular Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, fueled the impression of uncertainty among state leadership.
In Peresypskyi, one of Odessa’s poorest districts, anger is brewing. At the entrance to a street lined with old Soviet buildings, three bus drivers share a coffee to the sound of crows. “The situation is getting worse and worse, the bombings on Odessa have resumed and prices are soaring, while our salaries are stagnating,” grumbles Georgy, a 50-year-old with an already white beard.
There are fewer and fewer worshippers of President Zelensky. People are opening their eyes.
“This government doesn’t care about fighting corruption. The proof is that we find corrupt people even within Zelensky’s inner circle,” says Vanya angrily, referring to Oleh Tatarov and Andriy Yermak, the two strongmen in the presidential administration suspected of corruption and influence peddling. Maxim, in his thirties, pushes further: “There are fewer and fewer worshippers of Zelensky. People are opening their eyes.”
From the hallways of the UN to European summits, President Volodymyr Zelensky remains the symbol of small Ukraine fighting courageously against the Russian giant. At home, his Churchillian stature crumbles day by day. Sensing the wound of the political beast, the elected opposition officials are abandoning the sacred unity that had prevailed until then.
“Zelensky responded well at the start of the war, but has since lost his leadership. His hand is wavering in the fight against corruption, and he is reluctant to announce the mobilization. Yet it is the only way to turn the military situation around. He must choose between retaining his popularity and winning the war,” says Petro Obukhov, the Odessa leader of former President Petro Poroshenko’s party. Would the 37-year-old politician enlist in the army to set an example? “Certainly not, I don’t want to die,” he responds.
Targeting the city’s Russian heritage
Bewildered by the lack of prospects of victory, Odessa is looking for an expiatory victim. Its Russian heritage represents a prime target. The city has its roots in Greek antiquity, but owes its modern design to Catherine the Great. After she took the region from the Ottomans in 1789, the Russian empress transformed the fishing village into a colorful free port, attracting settlers from all of Europe as well as hundreds of thousands of Jews escaping pogroms.
Odessa became a popular vacation spot for Muscovites, the southern rival of St. Petersburg, and a literary fantasy across Russia. Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, then Isaac Babel’s Tales portray a flamboyant, cosmopolitan and sulfurous metropolis. This image permeates the Russian psyche to this day, making Odessa a powerful propaganda tool.
The once pro-Russian mayor of Odessa has given free rein to a committee in charge of “de-Russifying”
“Russian President Vladimir Putin often mentions the city as proof of Ukraine’s belonging to ‘Great Russia.’ However, most of the Russian figures associated with Odessa have above all been the spearhead of an imperialist policy which has harmed the Ukrainian people,” says Artak Hryhorian, 26, a member of a collective campaigning to rid Odessa’s streets of its Russian relics.
“Catherine II never set foot here and only signed an ukase to build a port. Pushkin stayed briefly, and he mostly portrayed the Ukrainians as stupid beings, unworthy of so-called Russian greatness,” Hryhorian says. While his collective’s influence was rather marginal before the war, it has since built up.
The once pro-Russian mayor of Odessa has changed sides and given free rein to a committee in charge of “de-Russifying” the city’s heritage. The statue of Catherine II, which stood in a square in the city center, was removed in 2022. The bust of Pushkin, under the windows of the city hall, will soon join the empress in the museum’s cellars. Tchaikovsky Street, adjacent to the famous Odessa National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, is expected to be renamed.
“Without culture, why live?”
The crowd gathered on the steps of the Odessa Opera is a thousand miles from this identity debate. While the first snowflakes fall on the baroque façade, where another bust of Alexander Pushkin sits, a river of well-dressed music lovers floods the lobby. This evening, Andersen’s “Thumbelina” is adapted into a ballet. Backstage, a group of soldiers leaving for the front marvel at the magical decor.
The Opera, except during the first four months of the invasion when it closed, honors its glorious reputation without interruption. “It’s not the most beautiful opera in the world, but it’s certainly not the second,” the residents like to joke, casually poking fun at the Bolshoi in Moscow.
The bell rings, the lights dim, the first notes rise from the pit and bodies rush onto the stage. Amazed by this flurry, the youngest spectators’ eyes are wide open. “This is why we are here in times of war: to feed souls with emotions, to help them to hang on. Without culture, why live?,” Igor Chernetskyi, one of the opera’s conductors, whispers tenderly from a corner of the lobby.
The will to survive
Yet the musicians’ virtuosity does not conquer all anxieties. Russia’s frantic rearming, which has shifted to a war economy preoccupies the conductor. “I try to be optimistic, but I am overcome by increasingly pessimistic feelings. The world seems to be tiring of the Ukrainian cause. And if Western aid were to stop, then our way of life would be over,” Chernetskyi says.
In the dark night, a violent blizzard is now raging outside the opera. Along Derybasivska Street, the city’s main shopping avenue, restaurants are full despite the storm. On the first floor of a trendy trattoria, four young women surrounded by bouquets of flowers celebrate a birthday by taking a series of selfies.
A little further away, a cocktail bar known across the country is always full. Even the strip clubs are hard at work. The dancers of Odessa, known throughout the Slavic world for their legendary beauty, swear they also have a role in the conduct of the war.
Terrified of fighting on the frontline
“Many soldiers come to see us after they come back from the trenches, and some are traumatized by what they saw. They often spend hours confiding in us. We serve as psychologists in a way,” says Megan, 23, leaning at the counter of an establishment with red velvet walls.
“More generally, the war has made people more respectful toward us. Adversity tempers morals and makes us realize that we are all in the same boat,” she says. But the boat of some Odessites rushes towards the rapids faster than others.
Across the street, someone navigates through the gusts of snow, razing the walls. Piotr, in his thirties, is going back home a few minutes before curfew. Like many men of draft age, he only goes out late at night to avoid meeting army recruiters.
“I’m terrified of fighting. Several of my friends were sent to the front, sometimes without training,” whispers the interior designer, who no longer even ventures to the supermarket. “I now have to plan for the eventuality of my death. It’s a dizzying feeling.” The man soon disappears into a gateway door entrance.
Midnight strikes, curfew starts in Odessa. The war is not done devouring Ukraine.
