Odesa under fire

Russia is sending missiles and drones to Odesa almost every day. So how does life go on, how do people live, when an attack could come at any moment? Odesa lives, and works.

It is mid way through a weekday morning in Odesa, and people are going about their day: working in offices, driving buses, making pots of filter, serving customers in grocery shops. Suddenly the air alarm sounds, the loud, persistent noise of a siren: a breathless voice note on the local telegram channel “Raketa, raketa!” - incoming missile threat. It is not yet even noon, and moments later there is a loud explosion. Then silence. Then sirens. It seems the missile has landed in a residential area in the east of the city, and the worried messages begin, as people with friends and family nearby begin frantically checking in. Then, suddenly, another loud explosion, from the same direction. What no-one realises yet is that it was a deliberate double-strike - this second missile, was designed to hit the emergency workers and paramedics who had rushed to the scene to help the victims of the first one. It does not get more horrific than this. Twenty one people were killed, scores more injured, the worst single attack in Odesa since the start of the full scale war. Not that it was reported much, outside of Ukraine: not the attack itself, nor the graphic video from the scene, nor the day of mourning, nor the stories of those who lost thelr lives - the young fireman, the deputy mayor, the senior police officer: they were husbands and daughters and neighbours and friends. This was supposed to be an ordinary weekday morning in Odesa, until Russia sent deadly Iskander missiles flying to peoples’ homes. 

It is just after midnight on Sunday in Odesa, and people are already in bed, or pottering about their flats getting ready for the night. The air alarm suddenly punches through the sky: the telegram channels say that several waves of shahed kamikaze drones are on the way. The telegram channels are very specific: they warn different towns in the region or parts of the city that they need to be careful. If you don’t know the area you end up spending a lot of time typing the names into Google Maps to see if these places are close by. ‘CENTRE BE CAREFUL!’ shouts the channel. ‘CENTRE, TO YOU. FIVE MINUTES’. There is a nasty buzzing sound right overhead, like an angry motorbike engine: it’s why the drones are known as mopeds. A series of loud explosions, and what sounds like rapid gunfire. This is the anti aircraft defence. The telegram channels are busy tonight; ‘ANOTHER GROUP, FROM THE SEA!’ They warn it will be loud. It is loud: and this goes on and on, and on, and on, for more than two hours. Explosions, gunfire, drones. At one point, everything seems to fall quiet. Then comes another warning ‘DANGER OF MISSILES!’ which fortunately turns out not to be so. It is almost half past two in the morning when the all clear sounds, the telegram channel signs off, declaring ‘GLORY TO AIR DEFENCE!’. People begin to come back up from basements or corridors or bathrooms, and try to get some sleep.

How it looks to read the warnings

It is Sunday lunchtime in Odesa and people are tired after the waves of drone attacks the night before. Coffee shop owners have wiped the exhaustion from their eyes and turned up to work, so that other people can get their shots of much needed caffeine. A baker friend tells me he had been working until midnight, doing paperwork, and had only just got into bed when the barrage started. A couple of hours sleep was all he managed before his pre-dawn shift at work began. It is lunchtime and the city is not as busy as usual, but there are groups of young people in cafes and families walking down to the sea, and then an air alarm goes off again: ‘DANGER OF MISSILES’. In the entrance to an underground carpark on the city’s main street, people are standing, checking their phones: the missiles were fired from occupied Crimea, says the telegram channel. Then: ‘EXPLOSION IN MYKOLAIV’. And another. A residential area - at least five people are hurt, many homes have been damaged. It is Sunday lunchtime in Odesa, and there are people sheltering in an underground carpark, reading on their phones about ballistic missile strikes in the neighbouring city. Footage posted later show burned out cars, the rubble of homes. “Hold on Mykolaiv! Odesa is with you!” says the Telegram channel, and then the all clear sounds, the shops which had hurriedly closed unlock their doors and switch their lights back on, and people try again to go about their day.

It is seven thirty at night in Odesa and the siren comes on yet again: more drones are flying in this direction. Everything is quiet in the city at the moment, says the telegram channel - you have time to get to a safe place. If there is any such thing, any more.

‘Mykolaiv is Odesa’s shield’