But as much as I keep telling myself I can weather this out — having worked and lived in many conflict zones over the years — I am beginning to recognize the gathering dark clouds that signal it’s time to leave. The daily rollercoaster of emotions, fighting back tears when describing the situation around me on live television, how even the smallest sounds seem to trigger the instinctive flight-or-fight response.
I’m not the only one. Sadly, after several nights of violent strikes, it feels as if the war is finally closing in on us in Odesa, Ukraine’s jewel on the Black Sea and my beloved temporary home over the past year. ... I doubt Russian forces intend to lay waste to Odesa the way they did to the Ukrainian city of Mariupol early on in the war. But then again, we seem to have reached a tipping point in human cruelty in this war.
Late last week, Russian cruise missiles blasted the port and an overlooking bluff where the imposing Chinese consulate is located. That’s a 10-minute walk from my flat and an area which I’d previously considered off limits to Russian aggression (isn’t Beijing one of the few buddies Moscow has left?).
And early Sunday, another strike ripped into Odesa’s historic district, with its architectural gems, museums, restaurants and famed music school. The impact sent shards of glass tumbling onto the sidewalk of my favorite hangout, Dizyngoff Restaurant, and onto the square where the statue of Odesa’s founder, Russian Empress Catherine II, once stood.
‘We are losing hope’
Lika Bezchastnova, a dear friend and owner of Dizyngoff, told me after the strike: “I’ve never felt this way before but we are losing hope in the war ending in our favor. We are feeling helpless. It’s come to the point where we feel neither protected nor supported by the West. And I don’t want to feel that way.”
Oleksandra Kovalchuk, Deputy Director of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum (so far spared by the Russian missiles) told me: “Even though we’ve seen how dangerous it became in other parts of Ukraine in the past year and a half, including targeted hits on cultural heritage, we were totally unprepared for something of this scale in Odesa — five cultural institutions impacted by blast waves.”
“It’s intense, heartbreaking and very painful for everyone,” she added. “These institutions are very core to us: we’ve been visiting them since we’ve been little children. Seeing them hit was a very, very painful thing. It was hard to imagine that the Russians are that barbarian to target central Odesa. But they are.”
... Odesa has borne the brunt of Russia’s fury over the Crimean bridge attack this month. The attacks also coincide with Russia pulling out of the Black Sea grain deal that was keeping Ukrainian grain flowing to the world.
It’s becoming clearer that part of the Kremlin’s military strategy to defeat Ukraine has expanded to the Black Sea, from where the deadly Kh-23 and Oniks anti-ship cruise missiles are launched.
They fly unbelievably fast, are capable of traveling extremely high and low altitudes and are pretty much immune to interception by conventional means (which is why the leadership here in Ukraine is calling for Patriot missile defense systems).
The twisted Kremlin’s end game this time, it seems to me, is to rip apart Ukrainian agricultural export infrastructure to the point that desperate markets have no choice but to source from Russia. Consider that East Africa, where the World Food Program says millions of people are experiencing unprecedented levels of food insecurity, is hugely dependent on Ukrainian grain.
As much as words of condemnation from austere bodies such as UNESCO have become a customary response to Russian aggression, words don’t repel missiles the way the Patriots.
https://us.cnn.com/2023/07/26/opinio...kiw/index.html
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Originally Posted by Washin
