On the front line of Russian attacks, Ukraine’s Odesa cries out for US aid
As increasingly frequent and ferocious attacks kill civilians, Odesa is calling for promised US air defences.
After leaving Odesa largely untouched by the barrages of drones and missiles it has launched against Ukraine this winter, Russia has struck the port city during March as never before in this war.
On March 2, a Russian drone demolished a nine-storey building, killing at least 12 people in one of the deadliest attacks behind the front lines this year.
... Just four days later, Russia landed a ballistic missile inside the commercial port less than 500 metres (1,640 feet) from where Zelenskyy stood with visiting Greek premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Then, on March 15, Russia launched a deadly cocktail of missiles and Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
Ukrainian defenders managed to shoot down all 27 of the drones, but two Iskander short-range ballistic missiles landed on the Bolshoi Fontan – or Great Fountain – promontory, a tall escarpment overlooking the Black Sea, surrounded by popular beaches and a promenade. ...
... Paramedics Mikhail Ivankevich and Sergei Rotaru were among the first to arrive on the scene.
“We arrived almost immediately after the first missile struck and saw two victims. We took one into our ambulance, and the other was to be picked up by a second ambulance,” Ivankevich told Al Jazeera.
“Suddenly, we heard that another rocket was flying. We started to drive away and tried to pick up speed, but didn’t have time … The ambulance was completely wrecked.” ... “It’s a miracle that I survived,” said Ivankevich, who believed the time delay between two missiles striking the same spot was a deliberate ploy to kill first responders.
A kilometre (0.6 miles) away, pensioner Elena Ivanovna Roshkovan was out shopping with her neighbours Peter and Nadezhda Sosnora. Their houses were on the edge of Camp Victoria – a summer camp for elementary schoolchildren. Here, too, missiles fell. ...
... Odesa is exposed to a wide expanse of open sea, on the other side of which lies the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, from which many of the missiles and drones are launched. ... "Odesa is a basic target because it is a node for grain exports, either towards the Danube or via the [Black Sea] ships,” said Kotoulas. “Russia wanted to create insecurity and concern in Ukraine’s rear, despite the fact that a Russian assault on the city is now out of the question.” ...
“Drones offer a few minutes’ warning to get to a shelter, but after sirens sound, missiles strike within a minute,” Spyros Boubouras, a member of Odesa’s large Greek community, told Al Jazeera.
“Whenever Ukraine had a successful strike in Crimea, the following week in Odesa was sheer hell.”
“The location of air defence in the Odesa region is built in such a way that it is not always possible to intercept both drones and missiles on the approaches to the city itself,” Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuri Ignat recently said at a news conference. ...
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2...out-for-us-aid
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