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Geopolitics

Is Odessa Next? Putin Sees A Gateway To Moldova — And Chance For Revenge

After the fall of Mariupol, Vladimir Putin appears to have his eye on another iconic southern coastal city, with a strong identity and strategic location.

Is Odessa Next? Putin Sees A Gateway To Moldova — And Chance For Revenge

Odessa after a missile attack

Vincenzo Circosta/ZUMA
Anna Akage

Air strikes 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.

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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.

Proud Ukrainian spirit

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.

Despite everything, Odessa remains a proudly Ukrainian city.

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."

photo of people at the beach

Still a moment to get some sun in Odessa

Viacheslav Onyshchenko/SOPA Images via ZUMA

Strategy or symbolism?

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.

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Society

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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