Tag: Odesa

Russia launches 122 missiles in one of biggest attacks on Ukraine since start of war

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Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 18 civilians across the country in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the 22-month war.

AFP reporters in Kyiv heard several powerful explosions in the early hours of Friday and saw thick black smoke billowing from a warehouse.

“We haven’t seen so much red on our monitors for a long time,” said Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine‘s air force, explaining that Russian forces had first launched a wave of suicide drones followed by missiles.

The Ukrainian air force intercepted 87 of the missiles and 27 of the Shahed-type drones overnight, Ukraine’s military chief Valery Zaluzhnyi said.

Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel: “The most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the Ukrainian air force, the previous biggest assault was in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles against Ukraine. This year, the biggest was 81 missiles on March 9, air force records show.

“There are people killed by Russian missiles today that were launched at civilian facilities, civilian buildings,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” he said on Telegram.

Two people were confirmed dead in the capital Kyiv, with more people thought to be trapped under rubble at a warehouse damaged by falling debris, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram messenger.

He also said the capital’s air defences were working intensively.

A metro station whose platforms were being used as an air raid shelter was damaged, he said.

Sergiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said a warehouse with an area of around 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) was burning in the northern Podil district.

“There are many wounded, the number is being clarified,” he said.

In other districts of the city, an uninhabited multistorey block of flats also caught fire and a private house was damaged, Popko said.

Maternity hospital struck

In the central Shevchenko district, a residential building was damaged and there was also a fire in a warehouse with six believed to be injured, Popko said.

Klitschko wrote on social media that there appeared to be three people still under rubble of the warehouse while three others had been rescued.

The overnight attacks came days after Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia in a major setback for the Russian navy.

Drones and missiles struck at least five other Ukrainian cities on Friday, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odesa in the south, the cities’ mayors and police said.

“So far we have counted 22 strikes in different districts of Kharkiv,” the mayor, Igor Terekhov, said on television.

“There are currently seven injured in hospital. Unfortunately one person has died.”

In Lviv, governor Maksym Kozytsky said that “one person was killed and three wounded”.

In Dnipro, the mayor, Borys Filatov, said there were injured and dead. The health ministry said that a maternity hospital in the city had been “severely damaged”.

Two people were killed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and at least 15 were injured, including two children, as missiles hit residential buildings, the regional governor said.

Ukraine’s southern command said 14 attack drones had been destroyed in the south of the country and there were no casualties reported.

The Polish army said a Russian missile passed through Polish airspace on Friday, entering from and then back into Ukraine, as Russia pummelled Ukraine with the barrage. 

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace … It also left our airspace,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the general staff of the Polish armed forces, told reporters. 

“The object arrived from the Ukrainian border,” Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, spokesman of the operational command of the armed forces, earlier told news channel TVN24. 

“There was intense shelling of Ukrainian territory at night so this incident could be linked to that.” 

He said the airspace violation occurred near the Polish border city of Zamosc. 

Crucial Western support

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday said Moscow’s latest missile strikes on Ukraine showed Russian President Vladimir “Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy”.

“We will not let him win. We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes,” he added on X, formerly Twitter.


On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining package of weapons available for Ukraine under existing authorisation, as uncertainty surrounds further aid to his war-torn country.

Zelensky had warned that any change in policy from the US – Kyiv’s main backer – could have a strong impact on the course of the war.

“I thank President Joe Biden, Congress, and the American people for the $250 million military aid package announced yesterday,” Zelensky said on social media.

In an interview published on Friday, Christian Freuding, a German general who oversees the German army’s support for Kyiv, said Russia was severely weakened but was showing greater “resilience” than Western allies had expected at the start of the war.

“We perhaps did not see, or did not want to see, that they are in a position to continue to be supplied by allies,” he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

© France Médias Monde graphic studio

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters, AP)



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Russia targets Ukraine’s port of Odesa and calls it payback for a strike on a key bridge to Crimea

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Ukraine said its forces shot down Russian drones and cruise missiles targeting the Black Sea port of Odesa before dawn on Tuesday in what Moscow called “retribution” for an attack that damaged a crucial bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russians first sought to wear down Ukraine’s air defences by firing 25 exploding drones and then targeted Odesa with six Kalibr cruise missiles, the Ukrainian military’s Southern Command said.

All six missiles and the drones were shot down by air defences in the Odesa region and other areas in the south, officials said, though their debris and shock waves damaged some port facilities and a few residential buildings and injured an elderly man at his home.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its “strike of retribution” was carried out with sea-launched precision weapons on Ukrainian military facilities near Odesa and Mykolaiv, a coastal city about 50 km to the northeast.

It destroyed facilities preparing “terror attacks” against Russia involving maritime drones, including a facility at a shipyard that was producing them, the Ministry said. It added that it also struck Ukrainian fuel depots near the two cities.

It was not possible to verify the conflicting claims by both countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine on Monday for striking the Kerch Bridge, which links Russia with Crimea and was attacked in October 2022 and needed months of repairs. The bridge is a key supply route for the peninsula, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014.

Ukrainian officials stopped short of directly taking responsibility, as they have done in similar strikes before, but Ukraine’s top security agency appeared tacitly to admit to a role.

Satellite images taken on Monday by Maxar Technologies showed serious damage to both eastbound and westbound lanes of the bridge across the Kerch Strait on the part nearest to the Russian mainland, with at least one section collapsed. The railroad bridge that runs parallel to the highway appeared undamaged.

The Russian military has sporadically hit Odesa and the neighboring region throughout the war, but Tuesday’s barrage was one of the biggest attacks on the area.

Ukrainian forces have been targeting Crimea with drones and other attacks. Kyiv has vowed to reclaim it from Russian control, arguing that the peninsula plays a key role in sustaining the Russian invasion and is a legitimate target.

The onslaught also came a day after Russia broke off a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship vital grain supplies from Odesa during the war. Moscow said the decision was in the works long before the bridge attack.

Even so, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov alleged, without offering evidence, that the specific shipping lanes and routes used for the grain transport under the deal were abused by Ukraine.

“Our military has repeatedly said that Ukraine has used these grain corridors for military purposes,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will continue implementing the grain deal. Mr. Peskov warned that such action was risky because the region lies next to an area where there is fighting.

“If they try to do something without Russia, these risks must be taken into account,” Mr. Peskov told reporters.

Mr. Zelensky said grain exports by sea and port security topped the agenda of his meeting on Tuesday with senior military commanders and top government officials, adding that he received reports on logistics and protection of the coastal regions.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Russia is endangering the lives of millions of people around the world who need Ukrainian grain exports. Hunger is a growing threat in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty.


Also read: Why allowing Ukraine to ship grain during Russia’s war matters to the world

“The world must realise that the goal of the Russian Federation is hunger and killing people,” Mr. Yermak said. “They need waves of refugees. They want to weaken the West with this.”

The United Nations and Ukraine’s Western allies slammed Moscow for halting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, saying it put many lives in peril.

USAID is giving Ukraine a further $250 million to support its agricultural sector as its chief, Samantha Power, visited Odesa and chided Moscow for its stance.

“Russia’s disruption of maritime commerce since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, including blockading ports, delaying ship inspections, and, most recently, withdrawing from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, has severely choked the amount of grain Ukraine is able to provide to the world amid a global food crisis,” a USAID statement said.

The Kremlin said the agreement would be suspended until Moscow’s demands to lift restrictions on exports of Russian food and fertilizer to the world are met. Peskov on Tuesday reaffirmed an earlier Kremlin pledge to provide especially poor countries in Africa with grain for free, adding that the issue will be discussed at a Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg next week.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry also said its forces had foiled a Ukrainian attack on Crimea using 28 drones.

The ministry said 17 of the attacking drones were shot down by air defenses and 11 others were jammed by electronic warfare means and crashed. It said there was no damage or casualties.

Also Tuesday, satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed that a convoy of vehicles arrived at a once-abandoned military base in Belarus, which was offered to Russia’s private military contractor, Wagner. That followed a short-lived rebellion last month against the Russian Defense Ministry by Wagner’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The photos, taken Monday, show a long line of vehicles coming off a highway into the base near the Belarusian town of Osipovichi, some 75 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the capital, Minsk.

Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that monitors troops movements in Belarus, said a convoy of more than 100 vehicles with Russian flags and Wagner insignia entered the country, heading for the camp. The group said it was the third Wagner convoy to enter Belarus since last week.

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Evacuation of Kyiv icons takes fight for Ukraine’s heritage to Louvre in Paris

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The Louvre in Paris is hosting some of Ukraine’s most treasured works of art that were secretly evacuated from Kyiv to shield them from the war. Their exhibition at the world’s best-known museum highlights the role played by culture and heritage as Ukraine resists Russian attempts to deny both its past and present.

In mid-May, as Russia’s Vladimir Putin mulled the transfer of the country’s holiest icon from a Moscow museum to a cathedral church, a secret convoy slipped out of Kyiv, under military escort, carrying artefacts equally precious and more than twice as old.

Bound for Poland, Germany and then France, the cargo featured 16 extremely fragile works from Kyiv’s most prestigious art gallery, the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum, including 1,400-year-old Byzantine icons that rank among Ukraine’s most emblematic treasures.

After months hiding in undisclosed storage facilities in Ukraine, the precious icons found a new and temporary showcase on Wednesday, June 14, at the Louvre in Paris, the world’s most visited museum, far from the war raging in eastern Europe and out of reach of Russian bombs.

Hailing from an ancient monastery located at the foot of Mount Sinai, in Egypt’s eponymous desert, the icons have a track record of escaping cataclysm, said Olha Apenko-Kurovets, a curator from the Khanenko Museum currently working at the Louvre.

“There’s barely a dozen left in the world today, including the four that are now here at the Louvre,” she said, noting that the Khanenko artefacts survived the iconoclastic “war on icons” that swept the Byzantine empire in the 7th and 8th centuries.

“They’re not just Ukrainian treasures or Byzantine heritage,” she added. “They are hugely important to world heritage, too.”

A visitor looks at an icon depicting Saints Plato and Glyceria, from the Khanenko Museum’s collections, at the Louvre in Paris. © Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP

Icons are stylised painted portraits, usually of saints, that are considered sacred in Eastern Orthodox churches. The four Khanenko pieces are encaustic paintings on wood – a pioneering technique that gave birth to the oldest painted icons in the Orthodox world.

The Louvre exhibition includes a fifth work: an exquisitely crafted micro-mosaic representing Saint Nicholas, with a gold frame, believed to hail from late 13th or early 14th century Constantinople. It is one of about 50 such works in the world, noted Apenko-Kurovets, stressing that “all five exhibits at the Louvre are extremely rare – and extremely fragile”.

The Khanenko Museum's micro-mosaic depicting Saint Nicholas, attributed to late 13th- and early 14th-century Constantinople workshops.
The Khanenko Museum’s micro-mosaic depicting Saint Nicholas, attributed to late 13th- and early 14th-century
Constantinople workshops. © Khanenko Museum

Unlike Putin’s decision to transfer Andrei Rublev’s “Holy Trinity” to the Cathedral Church of Christ the Saviour, which was motivated by propaganda purposes, disregarding the fragile work’s safety, the decision to evacuate the Khanenko icons was dictated by necessity, coming months after the iconic Kyiv museum was damaged in an air strike.

Transporting such works is a delicate operation at the best of times, let alone in wartime. It required absolute secrecy from all parties involved, until the works were safely in Paris.

The artefacts travelled in air-conditioned boxes that were purpose-built in France and transported to Ukraine. The operation was financed in part by the Action Plan for the Protection of Heritage in Ukraine (ALIPH), a Swiss-based foundation that has spent millions of dollars helping to salvage Ukraine’s artistic heritage.

“We did everything we could to ensure they travelled comfortably,” said Apenko-Kurovets, who spoke of her conflicting emotions at seeing the icons in their new temporary home in the heart of Paris.

“It’s a huge relief to have them here, in a safe environment, but very sad that they had to leave in the first place,” she explained. “It is also a major opportunity: to spread knowledge about Ukraine’s art collections and cultural wealth, and raise awareness of the threat weighing on this heritage.”

Scramble to save Ukraine’s artistic treasures

Ukraine was home to seven UNESCO world heritage sites at the start of the war, including Kyiv’s St Sophia Cathedral, whose stunning Byzantine frescoes and mosaics survived multiple invasions, from the onslaught of Genghis Khan’s Mongols to the Nazi occupation.

In January, the UN culture agency rushed to add an eighth site – the historic centre of Odesa, the “Pearl of the Black Sea” – to shield it from the bombardment that has ravaged Ukrainian cultural landmarks across the country.

The monument of the Duke of Richelieu in Odesa, covered with sandbags in preparation for a possible Russian offensive, in March 2022.
The monument of the Duke of Richelieu in Odesa, covered with sandbags in preparation for a possible Russian offensive, in March 2022. © Petros Giannakouris, AP

Since February 2022, UNESCO has verified damage to 259 cultural landmarks, including religious sites, museums, monuments and libraries. Ukrainian officials have put the number at twice as many, warning that the catastrophic flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River has put many more at risk.

In the early days of the war, as residents of Kyiv and other cities went underground for cover, so did the art collections from the Khanenko Museum and other venues. Responding to Ukrainian pleas for help, museums across Europe raced to donate emergency supplies to help with the evacuations.

Between March and December 2022, French galleries provided 75 tonnes of packing and preservation materials, from bubble wrap to fire extinguishers, in a collective effort coordinated by the French branch of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The material was delivered by Chenue, an art transportation company, which volunteered its services for free.

“The priority was to protect museum staff and the collections,” said Emilie Girard, head of ICOM France, noting that several museums also offered to hire colleagues from Ukraine for the duration of the war.

“At first, museum workers were keen to stay nearby, in western Ukraine or in Poland, hoping that the war would end quickly and they could return to their jobs,” Girard explained. However, those hopes rapidly faded as the fighting dragged on, turning Putin’s so-called “special military operation” into a deadly war of attrition.

Despite the relentless bombing, and their emptied galleries, Ukraine’s cultural institutes refused to be silenced. 

At the Khanenko Museum, director Yuliya Vaganova said staff continued to work night and day, “through blackouts and missile raids, running contemporary art projects, lectures, master-classes for children and concerts”. 

The Khanenko Museum in Kyiv after it was damaged by a Russian missile strike in October 2022.
The Khanenko Museum in Kyiv after it was damaged by a Russian missile strike in October 2022. © Yurii Stefanyak

The continuing danger became all too apparent in October when a missile landed a few steps away from the gallery’s elegant 19th century mansion, shattering its windows and damaging the interiors. While the collections had already been moved to a secret location, Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian infrastructure meant they were exposed to repeated power cuts, hampering their safekeeping.

Days later, while on a trip to Paris, Vaganova approached her counterpart from the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, taking up her offer to shelter the Khanenko’s most precious items for the duration of the war. The Kyiv institute pointed to its Byzantine icons, touting the potential for scientific collaboration with the Louvre. Their transfer was formally agreed in February during a visit to Kyiv by France’s culture minister, Rima Abdul Malak. 

At the show’s opening in Paris, Abdul Malak’s Ukrainian counterpart Oleksandr Tkachenko spoke of a “symbolic and effective gesture of support for Ukrainian culture”, thanking French authorities and the Louvre for their support.

The minister added: “[The Russians] are stealing our artefacts, they ruined our cultural heritage sites and this shows how big and huge Ukrainian culture is, which is part of world heritage.”

‘We have to protect Ukrainian people – and their culture too’

The Khanenko icons come at an opportune time for the Louvre, which is poised to launch its new Department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian Art, with dedicated rooms scheduled to open in 2027.

“We’re talking about some of the very first icons in the Orthodox world, which made them an obvious draw for the Louvre,” said Apenko-Kurovets. She stressed that the works’ transfer to France is part of a scientific project – involving “close collaboration between French and Ukrainian experts” – as much as it is a rescue operation.

Once the exhibition wraps up on November 6, the precious artefacts will be analysed at the Louvre’s laboratories to determine, among other things, their exact origin and age. The new department’s director, Maximilien Durand, plans to launch an international research programme centred on the icons.

“This is not about questions of identity or nationalism, but about cultural cooperation that will open up new networks for the Khanenko Museum,” Durand told French daily Le Monde, when news of the icons’ evacuation first broke.

Ukraine's Culture Minister Oleksander Tkachenko (centre), pictured with his French counterpart Rima Abdul Malak, at the opening of the Louvre exhibition.
Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksander Tkachenko (centre), pictured with his French counterpart Rima Abdul Malak, at the opening of the Louvre exhibition. © Anne-Christine Poujoulat, AFP

According to Olha Sahaidak of the Ukrainian Institute, a government agency tasked with promoting Ukrainian culture abroad, such scientific endeavours are of vital importance for a nation fighting for its survival.

“When a country and its people are destroyed, only culture can tell their story,” she said. “Of course we have to protect the Ukrainian people, but also their culture, and do everything we can to learn it, research it and spread it.”

Sahaidak hailed the Louvre exhibition as a case of “successful collaboration between two culture ministries and two national museums”. She highlighted the speed at which Ukrainian and French teams had collaborated on the project, noting that the Louvre is “not the type of place that normally works in a hurry”.

“We’re talking about a huge institution that plans exhibitions years in advance,” she said. “It was a big challenge to urgently include Ukraine in its plans – and an important gesture of solidarity.”

The Paris show, Sahaidak added, is an opportunity to advance what she described as three “equally important” objectives: to showcase Ukrainian collections, foster international co-operation and research, and relocate Ukraine’s tangible and intangible cultural landmarks within the wider European framework.

“Unfortunately, Ukrainian heritage has long been terra incognita for the rest of Europe,” she said. “It is very important that we raise awareness of this heritage in order to realise what we are losing in this war.”

Decolonising Ukrainian art

Since the start of the war, museums and art institutes across France have rushed to adapt their programmes and sift through their collections to showcase Ukrainian artists and raise awareness of the plight of the country’s cultural landmarks.

“While the first reaction was to offer material help to Ukrainian galleries, the focus now is on giving maximum visibility to Ukraine,” said ICOM’s Girard. “It’s a form of resistance, with the tools at our disposal: proving that Ukrainian culture, art and heritage exist – and that this rich and vibrant culture deserves to be seen far and wide, including at a formidable venue such as the Louvre.”

In some cases, this has sparked a reflection on the way museums qualify works by artists hailing from Ukraine – though critics say France has lagged behind others.

In an op-ed published by Le Monde in March, Olena Havrylchyk, a professor of economics at the Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, noted that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had recently recognised the 19th century painters Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ilya Repin as Ukrainian, after previously presenting them as Russian painters. She drew a contrast with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, which chose to ignore the painters’ Ukrainian identity, ties and subject matter during a roundtable on Russian art held just days later.


“Instead of perpetuating the Russian narrative, the Musée d’Orsay could have questioned the ways in which painters born in Ukraine became ‘Russian’ in the context of Russia’s colonisation of Ukraine,” Havrylchyk wrote, noting that the painters lived at a time when Russian imperial power was “systematically destroying Ukrainian identity” – much as Putin is now dismissing Ukraine as a post-Soviet fantasy or a Western plot.

French reluctance to question Moscow’s narrative reflects a lingering Russophile sentiment and the legacy of a long-established dialogue with Russian art historians, argued Sahaidak of the Ukrainian Institute.

“In the past it was always Russia that provided names, facts and context, so now we are seen through the eyes of Russian researchers and art historians,” she said. “We need our colleagues around the world to requalify their collections, in dialogue with Ukrainian experts, identifying the works of art that are connected with Ukraine and its history.”

ENCORE!
ENCORE! © FRANCE 24

 

The tragedy unfolding in Ukraine has presented an opportunity to foster such a dialogue, while also encouraging the circulation of Ukrainian art and artists in spite of the war – and sometimes because of it.

“Now is the time to access and discover some of the finest works from our national collections, which would otherwise not move,” said Apenko-Kurovets, pointing to the icons from the Khanenko Museum.

With its unprecedented Ukrainian-language captions, and a leaflet referencing Ukraine’s “millennia-old history”, the Louvre exhibition suggests the dialogue between experts is beginning to bear fruit in the world’s best-known museum.

“It’s the first time an exhibition at the Louvre ‘speaks’ Ukrainian,” added the Ukrainian curator in exile. “It might sound like a detail, but it makes all the difference to us.”



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War in Ukraine: ‘De-Russification’ on the rise in Odesa

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From our special correspondent in Odesa – Russia’s offensive in Ukraine has accelerated a campaign of “de-Russification” in the major port city of Odesa. It’s a delicate process in a city that has long been influenced by Russian language and culture. From changing street names to dismantling statues and removing Russian literature from library shelves, the war has removed previous resistance to the idea.

On December 28, 2022, in the middle of the night, municipal employees quietly dismantled a monument of Catherine the Great, Empress of all Russia.

For Artak Hryhoryan, a young IT engineer from Odesa speaking in early February, it was high time for city authorities to remove a statue which “for years had been a regular rallying point for pro-Russians with Russian flags and slogans repeating Moscow’s propaganda” from the public space.

The statue of the empress who snatched southern Ukraine from the domination of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the 18th century has long been a source of discord in Odesa. Originally erected in 1900, the bronze statue aimed to make the empress a “mother” and founder of the city. In 1920, the Bolsheviks dismantled it for the first time and replaced it with a statue of Karl Marx and later with another honouring the mutineers of the Russian battleship Potemkin.

The monument dedicated to the founders of the city of Odesa in 2010. © Wikimedia commons

The city council restored the statue in 2007, reinstalling it on its marble throne overlooking the famous Potemkin steps leading to the city’s port. A little over 15 years later, with Odesa living under threat of Russian missile fire, this symbol of Russian empire became unbearable to Artak. The 26-year-old became convinced that the statue should return to the museum.

Catherine II and the symbols of the Russian world

“Last September, I came here and threw red paint on the statue. A few days earlier, a young girl had vandalised the statue, too. She wrote ‘Catherine = Putin’. The police became involved and wanted to fine her. With the war, the police should not do that. The girl made a gesture for Ukraine. If the police were against her, they must be pro-Russian. I wanted to support her by vandalising the statue myself. If all the citizens of Odesa start protesting against the presence of this statue, the police will not be able to do anything. It is not a question of destroying the statue but rather of saying that it cannot stay here indefinitely. It’s just not possible [in the middle of this war] to keep Russian symbols in Odesa.”

Artak and his friends eventually achieved their aim. On November 30, the city council unanimously voted to remove the statue again. 

Artak Hryhoryan, a young IT engineer from Odesa who campaigned for the statue of Catherine II to be removed from public space. Odesa, February 4, 2023.
Artak Hryhoryan, a young IT engineer from Odesa who campaigned for the statue of Catherine II to be removed from public space. Odesa, February 4, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

“Catherine II oppressed many groups of people: the Poles, the Ukrainians and the Armenians”, explains Artak. “She is one of history’s most harmful characters. She committed the same horrors as Putin but 200 or 300 years ago. Given what is happening now, can we imagine seeing statues of Putin in 200 years? It’s impossible… We do not want any more monuments to the glory of dictators in our cities and streets; we want to be a democracy with statues dedicated to the glory of our heroes, not to that of Putin, Catherine or Stalin.”

No cancel culture in Odesa

The statue of Catherine the Great has been resting in a wooden box in front of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum for a little over a month. The director of the museum pays it little attention. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the necessity of dismantling the Empress’s statue became obvious to both previously pro- and anti-Russian Odesans, because the conflict managed to unite almost all Ukrainians against the new imperial war led by Moscow.

“We aren’t erasing anything, we are just putting the statue in a museum,” said Kyrilo Lipatov. “This monument was left here in the Fine Arts Museum. Now the Ukrainian Institute will decide what to do with it. For the moment, five artists are to be selected to propose projects that will allow for the public to consider this monument from a postcolonial perspective, and thus create something new”, he explained.

Kyrilo Lipatov, Director of the Odesa Fine Arts Museum, February 4, 2023.
Kyrilo Lipatov, Director of the Odesa Fine Arts Museum, February 4, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Museums have been in turmoil almost everywhere in Ukraine since the outbreak of the Russian offensive. Kyrilo Lipatov and his team sent part of the museum’s collections away for safekeeping, including works by Russian artists. “In other museums in southern Ukraine and Crimea, the works could not be evacuated, and the Russians seized them,” said Lipatov.

In 2021, Lipatov had already began to pull Soviet art from the museum’s space in order to redirect its focus towards contemporary pieces signed by Ukrainian artists. It was a first step in “de-communising” and “Ukrainising” the collection before adding new works inspired by Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion the following year.

A guided tour of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum, February 4, 2023.
A guided tour of the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum, February 4, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

When asked if the Fine Arts Museum was in the process of “de-Russifying” itself, denounced by some as a “cancel culture” operation, the director said, “It is Russia which practices ‘cancel culture’ [by denying the existence of the Ukrainian nation]. The Fine Arts Museum in Odesa is fighting to preserve works of art during this war, even works by Russian artists linked to Russian imperialism or official Soviet art, which have nothing neutral about them.”

Farewell to Russian culture or to Russian imperialism?

In the libraries of Odesa, the war has also led to an accelerated “de-Russification” of the bookshelves. “No one is going to ban reading Tolstoy, Lermontov, Pushkin or Dostoyevsky. It is Russia that discourages Ukrainians from reading these authors because they represent the culture of the aggressor,” said Iryna Biriukova, director of the Odesa National Scientific Library. “We studied these authors a lot in school. Today we want to discover other authors. People must know the riches of world literature. It is a question of balance. We are not prohibiting anything; we simply want to change people’s mentalities.”

Iryna Biriukova, Director of the Odesa National Scientific Library on February 3, 2023.
Iryna Biriukova, Director of the Odesa National Scientific Library on February 3, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Like many historic buildings in Odesa, the library, built by wealthy patrons in the early 20th century, barricaded itself at the start of the Russian offensive a year ago. The reading rooms are now deserted and visitors come to borrow books and also to recharge their smartphones. For Biriukova, the electricity shortage affecting Odesa for the past two months favours the reading of books in paper format. Suggesting visitors read works by Ukrainian authors and from authors from around world is an obvious step for her.

“De-communisation started in the 90s when certain streets were renamed. We are a city with a multicultural past but covered with ideological markers linked to Russia. The French, the Germans, the Jews, the Greeks, the Italians, the Moldavians and dozens of other nationalities built Odesa; this memory is under-represented. Russian imperial culture is largely over-represented. We have to find a balance; this is what has to change.”

Since 2014, the war between Ukraine and Russia has intensified. In parallel with the military confrontation, the conflict has extended to the cultural sphere. Residents of Odesa who are not fighting on the battlefields in Donbas or elsewhere now contend with questions of political and cultural figures and literature. For Artak,  removing Catherine the Great’s statue is a victory because “Putin refers to it in speeches”. He and others now want to take on the statues of Soviet generals which exist all over the city.

For the director of the Fine Arts Museum, it is urgent for “the monuments which have been created for propaganda purposes to be removed from the public space and brought into the museums, which will give them another life”. His colleague from the Odesa National Scientific Library has the same project, so that the vestiges of totalitarianism and imperialism have no other place than in the archives. “We cannot promote the culture of a nation that murders, loots and rapes our country. Look at the influence of certain books in Russia – is that what we want for our children?”

 

Ukraine, one year on
Ukraine, one year on © Studio graphique France Médias Monde

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Odesa, a defiant city on the strategic shores of the Black Sea

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From our special correspondent in Odesa – A seaside resort with a rich multicultural past, Odesa was one of the early targets of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in  February, 2022. But the port city mounted its defenses and the mayor, who once had a reputation for being pro-Russian, transformed himself into an uncompromising Ukrainian patriot. With its vital port again functioning – albeit in slow motion – the city keeps up its resistance as it awaits better days. 

On a wintry February morning, as a few rays of sunshine warm up Langeron beach in downtown Odesa, a handful of pedestrians sip their coffees while staring out at the Black Sea. Yuri, a middle-aged Odesa resident, sounds fatalistic as he describes his life these days.

“My daughter went to Poland. My wife and I stayed. Here, it is quiet compared to what’s happening in eastern Ukraine. We work when there is work, otherwise we stay home. We feel like we are surviving,” he says, watching the seagulls.

On the waterfront, restaurants, spas and other tourist attractions are almost deserted. A few Ukrainian soldiers patrol in the cold winter light. Other uniformed men are visible, but they are soldiers on leave. At the end of a pier, Maxim seems gigantic next to Anna, his girlfriend. He is fighting at the front, on the Kherson side, and is enjoying three days of leave. That’s all he can reveal about the fighting further east. The war is omnipresent in Odesa, as it is everywhere in Ukraine.

Maxim and Anna by the Black Sea in Odesa on February 3, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

“Before the war, people in Odesa were not very interested in politics,” says Olena Rotari, a freelance journalist from this port city. “In the days after the Russian invasion, I saw people making Molotov cocktails, filling sandbags and organising. When we heard that Kherson (200km east of Odesa) was occupied, we were afraid. But I told myself that with this mobilisation, Odesa will not fall.”

A year later, the city has not fallen. But for the past two months, the city is plunged into darkness in the evenings following a “kamikaze drone” attack launched by Russia on December 10 last year.

Daily life punctuated by power cuts

Maria lives with her husband on the 12th floor of a new building overlooking the Odesa Bay. They now cook on a gas stove and adapt to a new daily rhythm of life dictated by three hours of electricity followed by six hours of blackout before the power cycle is repeated again.

During power cuts, Maria uses a gas stove to cook in her Odesa apartment..
During power cuts, Maria uses a gas stove to cook in her Odesa apartment.. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

A car battery and a voltage regulator enable them to charge their mobiles, access the internet, heat water and provide basic lighting. Maria is lucky: the central heating is fully operational. This is not the case for many inhabitants of Odesa, which has a population of 1 million people.

The daughter of a soldier, Maria joined her parents in Italy with her two young children at the start of the war. She stayed there for six months before she returned, reassured by Ukraine’s military successes. “Odesa is my city, it’s the best place in the world,” she says. “With the war, we have become much more patriotic. We are more united. Now it’s all for one and one for all. There’s been a big change in the mentality here.”

The mayor of Odesa, whom many doubted, has become a great patriot. “At the very beginning of the war, for four or five days, I was very worried about Odesa because the mayor did not make any public statements or respond to the situation,” says Rotari, the journalist. “I was very surprised when he announced that he would fight against the Russian invasion and for Ukraine.”

The mayor and a questionable past

Rotari’s doubts about Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov were shared by many Ukrainians. They stem from Trukhanov’s background and the political positioning of the 58-year-old former captain in the Soviet armed forces, who served between 1986 and 1992.   

Trukhanov had long been perceived as a pro-Russian figure in Ukraine. In 2014, he belonged to the Party of Regions, the party of Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s former Kremlin-backed president who was ousted by the Maidan revolution, which erupted over his sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the EU.       

Seated in his office overlooking the port of Odesa, the mayor looks annoyed when questioned about his political past. Asked about his failure to object to the March 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, he replies coldly and defiantly that, “a vote by the Crimean parliament approved it. I am told that it was under the threat of 100 or 200 armed Russian soldiers, but that is not much. Why didn’t they do anything? Why didn’t they defend Crimea as we are defending our country today?”

Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov in his office on February 2, 2023.
Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov in his office on February 2, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Following his election as Odesa’s mayor in May 2014, Trukhanov was charged with corruption and associating with local mafia groups. He was never convicted by the courts, but suspicions remain. “Even today, like many civil society people in Odesa, I do not trust Trukhanov, and I doubt that he has become a Ukrainian patriot. In the past, we have seen his convictions change. He supported [former] president Viktor Yanukovich, then [former president Petro] Poroshenko. When a corruption investigation was opened against him, he became a supporter of [President Volodymyr] Zelensky. I think that if the Russian soldiers had arrived here, he would have become a supporter of [Vladimir] Putin. He changes flags constantly, depending on his interests at the moment,” says Rotari.

To those questioning his Ukrainian loyalty, the mayor replies: “It is true that I am a Russian speaker like 90% of the people of Odesa, it is a product of history. But I am sure that in the future we will speak Ukrainian here, my grandchildren will speak it, because that’s how it is.”

Setting the historical record straight

Odesa’s mayor finds it irksome that his city is considered a pro-Russian bastion in Ukraine.

Trukhanov received international attention last month when UNESCO designated the historic centre of Odesa as a World Heritage site and noted that it is a site in danger. 

Chess players near the Orthodox cathedral in Odesa on February 1, 2023.
Chess players near the Orthodox cathedral in Odesa on February 1, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Tensions were on the rise ahead of the vote, according to news reports, with Trukhanov and Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko writing an open letter objecting to what they viewed as a “politicised” description of the port city in a draft decision describing Russia’s Empress Catherine II, or Catherine the Great, as the founder of the city.

Back from a recent trip to Paris, where UNESCO is based, Trukhanov is keen to highlight Odesa’s European past.

“It is true that Russian culture is very present here, but Odesa is a European city. The first governor of the city was the Duke of Richelieu [in 1803]; many of our monuments were created by Italians. But it is also true that in the first months of the war, it was difficult for people of my generation, who were born or raised in the Soviet Union, to admit that Russia bombed us with missiles. It was hard to understand, but we have changed.”

With this conflict, Odesa seems to be definitively turning its back on Russia, according to Violetta Diduk, a tourist guide in the city. “A year ago, you couldn’t hear anyone speaking Ukrainian on the street, it was very rare. Now you hear it more and more. Besides, it’s often the Russian speakers who have turned the most anti-Russian. I am angry, but the young people are even worse, I have no words to describe what they feel. They don’t want to listen to Russian music or watch Russian movies anymore. They are much more radical than the older ones.”

Violetta Diduk, a tourist guide, on the main Deribasovskaya Street in Odesa's historic Old Town district on February 1, 2023.
Violetta Diduk, a tourist guide, on the main Deribasovskaya Street in Odesa’s historic Old Town district on February 1, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

A year after the February 24, 2022 Russian invasion, Diduk says her life has been turned upside down. The tourists have disappeared, some of her relatives have been mobilised, and she now lives with her partner, son and parents in the same apartment, which – “Thank God” – has a power generator.

The stories of the abuses committed by Russian forces in the nearby town of Kherson have chilled her. “I was a romantic and I discovered fear,” she says simply.

“There are still people who say that Odesa is a Russian city,” explains Diduk. “They repeat Russian propaganda, especially the older generation. There are even some who say that there is no war, that it’s an invention of television. But many people have changed their opinion about Russia. My mother had a neighbour who told her that the Russians are our friends. After February 24, he asked for her forgiveness.”

Before the war, Diduk began her tours with a history of Odesa, reminding clients that Odesa was not born with Catherine the Great’s conquest in 1794. The city’s greatness and wealth centres around its port. Trade, Odesa’s true religion, injected a cosmopolitanism that predates the Russian conquest. Long before the Russians arrived in the late 18th century, the Greeks, Romans and then the Ottoman Empire settled or controlled this site, which had a deep water port and was well protected from the winds and ice in winter. 

Moscow now calls the shots at Odesa’s port

Over the centuries, its unique geography made Odesa the most important port in Ukraine. But since February 24, the country has lost most of its maritime access. “Of the 18 ports that Ukraine had before 2014, it now controls only nine, including three on the Danube,” explains Dmytro Barinov, vice president of the Ukrainian Seaports Authority. “In 2021, 140 million tonnes of goods transited our ports,” he noted. 

For the port city, the blockade is another disaster. A year ago, hundreds of ships and millions of tonnes of grain were blocked at the quay. Around 1,000 port employees kept their jobs but their salaries were reduced by three-fourths “to be able to hold out for the long term”, explains Barinov.

On July 22, 2022, a grain agreement was signed in Istanbul between Ukraine, the UN, Turkey and Russia. It provides for the establishment of secure corridors in the Black Sea for grain shipments and inspection procedures by the four signatories of the agreement. Renewed on November 2, the agreement ended the total maritime blockade of Ukraine.

Loading a cargo of grain in the Odesa port.
Loading a cargo of grain in the Odesa port. © Handout from the Ukrainian Seaports Authority

“When the grain agreement was signed, when the ships started to come and go again, to pay taxes, work resumed,” says the former merchant marine captain. But a huge queue of ships has gradually formed on the Black Sea. “Currently, there are 117 ships that want to enter our waters and about 20 others that want to leave. Russia is responsible for this situation because we need at least 20 inspections per day and the Russians agree to only four or five. They don’t just inspect the cargo and the crew register, but also the ship’s equipment and many other things.”

Dmytro Barinov, vice president of the Ukrainian Seaports Authority
Dmytro Barinov, vice president of the Ukrainian Seaports Authority © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Moscow now dictates the level of activity in the Odesa port. By drawing out inspection schedules, Russia determines the volume of goods that Ukraine can trade. Since the first shipment on August 1, “we have been able to export 19 million tonnes of agricultural products. If this corridor and the inspections were working properly, we could have exported 29 million tonnes,” says Barinov.

Beaches, ships and mines

These days, Rotari, the journalist, rarely sees the silhouette of a cargo ship on the water from Langeron beach. Moreover, the port, located just below the old town, is now under Ukrainian army control.

“The military authorities restricted access to the Odesa waterfront after the Russian offensive in February. But the people of Odesa love freedom and do not like to follow rules. Unfortunately, people have been killed on the beaches: while walking, they stepped on mines. We are at war, we have to follow these rules, that’s how it is,” she says.   

Olena Rotari, a freelance journalist in Odesa on February 3, 2023.
Olena Rotari, a freelance journalist in Odesa on February 3, 2023. © David Gormezano, FRANCE 24

Contemplating the Black Sea’s waves offers some respite from the current shortages and deprivations in this port city. But not for long. The realities of the war have blotted out the ships that once dotted the horizon.

“There are many people in Odesa who are traumatised by the war, especially the displaced, those who fled torture and rape in the areas occupied by the Russians. The sight of the sea is not likely to soothe or comfort them,” says Rotari.   

As for the Russians, who have for so long cherished the rich history and charms of Odesa: they won’t be allowed to return anytime soon.

This article is a translation of the original in French.

 

 

Ukraine, one year on
Ukraine, one year on © Studio graphique France Médias Monde

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Live: US designates Russia’s Wagner Group as criminal organisation

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The US on Thursday formally designated Russian private military company the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organisation, freezing its US assets due to its role supporting Russia’s military in its war of aggression against Ukraine. This comes after French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna arrived in Odesa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, shortly after missile strikes hit crucial power infrastructure facilities in the surrounding region and caused blackouts in the city. Follow our live blog for the latest updates on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

4:23pm: US designates Wagner Group as criminal organisation

The US on Thursday formally designated Russian private military company the Wagner Group as a transnational criminal organisation, freezing its US assets for helping Russia’s military in the Ukraine war.

Last month the White House said the Wagner Group had taken delivery of an arms shipment from North Korea to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine, in a sign of the group’s expanding role in that conflict

3:19pm: Training likely to be a big challenge as West sends Ukraine tanks

As the US said it will send Abrams tanks to Ukraine in a major policy reversal after the UK broke the dam last week by saying it will send Challengers, Rob Thornton, a lecturer in the defence studies department at King’s College London, told FRANCE 24 that “we need to be a bit careful”.

“You can supply several dozen tanks – will it make a big difference on the battlefield. And it’s one thing supplying these tanks; it’s another thing training the crews to operate these tanks. These are very much more sophisticated than the old Soviet tanks that are used by both the Russians and the Ukrainians at the moment. It will take a lot of training to match up, to marry up, the high-tech and modern tanks that are being supplied with the ability of their crews to use them to the greatest effect.” As well as the training question, there will be “other problems”. In particular, the “maintenance of these tanks is something the Ukrainians will have to very much get used to”, Thornton said.


 

2:51pm: Russia bans Meduza news site in latest media crackdown

Russian authorities designated the independent news outlet Meduza an “undesirable organisation” on Thursday, effectively outlawing the site from operating in Russia and banning any Russian from cooperating with Meduza or its journalists.

The designation is the latest in a years-long campaign by the Kremlin to curb independent media and stop their reporting from reaching ordinary Russians in a crackdown that has escalated since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

In a statement announcing the decision, Russia’s General Prosecutor said the Latvia-based news outlet “poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system and the security of the Russian Federation”

2:42pm: ‘Two brigades of tanks’ for Ukraine army?

“There’s no doubt that with the decision […] of the United States to send its M1 Abrams tanks, a Rubicon has been passed here, and that momentum will now start to pick up,” said FRANCE 24 Chief Foreign Editor Robert Parsons.

“That’s certainly what the Ukrainians are hoping for, and last night Volodymyr Zelensky the Ukrainian president made that point in particular, when he was saying that ‘the key issue for us now is numbers’ and delivery time. They want those tanks as quickly as possible and they want them in as large numbers as possible,” Parsons continued. “They’re talking about 300; that’s what they believe they need if they’re going to stave off a Russian attack and then launch their own counter-attack against the Russians and break through and perhaps by the end of this year regain much of the territory that has been lost to the Russians over the last year.”

Given the number of countries now lining up to send tanks, “you could possibly envisage in pretty quick time two brigades of tanks being formed; that’s about 100 tanks”, Parsons noted. “That would suit the Ukrainians pretty well at this stage, but […] the Ukrainians are looking beyond this now. They’re talking about fighter jets. And although [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz said yesterday that’s not something that Germany would do, other NATO members are talking about the possibility.”


 

2:33pm: Ukraine’s wheat, corn crops shrink again as farmers struggle

Ukraine‘s corn and wheat production is set to fall for a second year in 2023, with corn output not expected to exceed 18 million tonnes and wheat production 16 million tonnes as farmers reduce planting due to the war, a grain sector group said on Thursday.

The projections were a best case scenario, and production could fall more sharply depending on weather and financial difficulties of farms, Ukraine Grain Association (UGA) head Nikolay Gorbachov told Reuters on the sidelines of Argus Media’s Paris Grain Conference.

Disruption to export trade following Russia’s invasion last year has left many farmers producing at a loss, he said.

“For farmers it became unprofitable to produce the grain and that’s why they cut the planted area,” he added.

2:28pm: Neither France nor allies at war with Russia, French foreign ministry underlines

Neither France nor its allies are fighting a war against Russia, the French foreign ministry said Thursday, following a Western decision to send heavy tanks to Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion.

“We are not at war with Russia and none of our partners are,” ministry spokeswoman Anne-Claire Legendre said, after comments from German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock that “we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other”.

2:18pm: French Leclerc tanks ‘not on the cards’ for Ukraine

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s visit to Odesa is a “highly symbolic” visit that was “hailed” by Ukraine’s foreign minister as “something courageous, something brave”, FRANCE 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze reported from Kyiv.

Colonna is in Odesa to “discuss the specific needs of the Ukrainian army when it comes to heavy weaponry”, Chaze continued. A “diplomatic source did address the question of whether or not Ukraine will get Leclerc tanks” from France – however, “apparently this is not on the cards because from the get-go, Ukraine was more keen to get Leopard tanks and maybe it would be too much of a hassle for Ukraine to have different kinds of tanks”.

A man walks next to the Opera Theatre building in the city centre, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine January 25, 2023.
A man walks next to the Opera Theatre building in the city centre, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine January 25, 2023. © Serhii Smolientsev, Reuters

 

12:28pm: Ukraine army says it downed 47 out of 55 Russian missiles, including 20 near Kyiv

The Ukrainian army said Thursday it had shot down 47 out of 55 missiles launched by Russia in a massive new wave of attacks.

The head of Ukraine’s army, Valery Zaluzhny, said Russia launched 55 air and sea-based missiles. “Ukraine’s armed forces destroyed 47 cruise missiles, 20 of them in the area of the capital,” he added on Telegram.

11:42am: French FM Colonna visits Odesa as it comes under Russian fire

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Thursday arrived in Ukrainian city Odesa in a visit aimed at underscoring France’s support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion.

She was there “to show France’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, now as before,” Colonna wrote on Twitter alongside a picture of herself in front of a city landmark.

Although delayed by a new wave of Russian strikes overnight and on Thursday morning, Colonna was still set to meet her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in the historic Black Sea port.

11:02am: Germany says to start talks with defence industry to speed up procurement

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Thursday he would kick off talks with the defence industry as early as next week to speed up arms procurement and ramp up ammunitions supplies.

“My primary task now is to enter into talks with the defence industry with the aim of significantly shortening procurement times,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a military exercise in Altengrabow in eastern Germany.

“If you look at ammunition, there is also the issue of quantity. This is another topic that I will raise in my talks with the defence industry, likely as early as next week if the schedule permits it,” he added.

10:40am: Western tank deliveries ‘direct involvement’ in Ukraine conflict, Moscow says

The Kremlin said Thursday that a decision by Western countries to supply Ukraine with modern tanks meant that they were party to the conflict, after Berlin and Washington approved the weapons for Kyiv.

“European capitals and Washington constantly give statements that sending various types of weapons, including tanks, in no way means their involvement in hostilities. We strongly disagree with this. In Moscow, this is perceived as direct involvement in the conflict and we see that this is growing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

10:25am: Power cuts in Ukraine after Russian air strikes, operator says

Ukraine on Thursday enforced emergency power cuts in Kyiv and several other regions to relieve pressure on the electricity grid following Russian strikes, an operator said.

“Due to the threat of a missile attack in Kyiv and the regions of Kyiv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk emergency blackouts have been introduced,” said DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power producer.

Ukrainian authorities earlier on Thursday reported Russian hits on energy facilities.

10:03am: Kyiv’s mayor says one dead, two injured in Russian missile attack

The mayor of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv said one person had been killed and two more were wounded on Thursday after Russia launched more than a dozen missiles in its latest large-scale aerial offensive.

“As a result of a rocket hitting a non-residential building in the Golosiivsky district, there is information that one person is dead and two wounded,” Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a statement on social media. The Kyiv city military administration said the death was due to parts of a missile falling.

9:50am: Two energy facilities struck in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, local official says

Authorities in Ukraine‘s southern region of Odesa said Thursday that two energy facilities were hit by Russian missiles, in the latest attack by Moscow’s forces against critical infrastructure.

“There is already information about damage done to two critical energy infrastructure facilities in Odesa. There are no injured. Air Defence Forces are working over the Odesa region,” the head of the region’s military administration, Yuriy Kruk, said on social media.

9:25am: Kyiv mayor reports ‘explosion’, Ukraine downs 15 missiles

Ukraine said Thursday it had shot down more than a dozen Russian missiles launched towards Kyiv, while the capital’s major reported an explosion in the city.

“The enemy launched more than 15 cruise missiles in the direction of Kyiv. Thanks to the excellent work of air defence, all air targets were shot down,” said Sergiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, while mayor Vitali Klitschko said: “Explosion in Kyiv! Stay in shelters!”

9:05am: Russia fires ‘more than 30 missiles’ at Ukraine during rush hour, Kyiv says

Ukraine said Thursday that Russian forces had fired more than 30 missiles at targets across the country, in the latest wave of attacks that have put pressure on Ukraine’s air defence systems.

“We expect more than 30 missiles, which have already started to appear in various territories. Air defence systems are working,” Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told local media.

The wave of missiles was launched during rush hour on Thursday morning and Ukrainians took cover in shelters as air defence forces shot down incoming salvos, officials said. An air raid alert wailed across the country as people were heading to work. In the capital Kyiv, crowds of people sheltered in underground metro stations, with some sitting on blankets or small plastic chairs.

A Reuters reporter heard the sound of a missile flying overhead at a low altitude, about 30 km from Kyiv. “As many as six Tu-95 (warplanes) have preliminarily taken off from Murmansk region and launched missiles,” air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said on national television.

7:53am: Air raid sirens heard across Ukraine as authorities report missile attacks

Ukraine declared an air raid alert over the whole country on Thursday, and senior officials said air defences units were shooting down incoming Russian missiles.

Two missiles were spotted over the territory of the Mykolaiv region, its governor, Vitaly Kim, said on the Telegram messaging app. “Missiles are flying inside the territory of Ukraine. At least two northwest through Mykolaiv region,” he said. Officials told the public to take shelter.

“The first Russian missiles have been shot down,” Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office said.

Russia has targeted critical infrastructure with missile and drone strikes since October, causing sweeping blackouts and other outages during winter.

7:14am: Ukraine declares air raid alert over most of country, authorities warn of possible missile attack

Ukraine declared an air raid alert over most of the country on Thursday, and regional authorities warned of a possible missile attack.

The DTEK electricity company said it was performing emergency shutdowns of electro power in the capital Kyiv, the rest of the Kyiv region, and also the regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk due to a danger of missile attack.

6:47am: Ukrainian military says it destroyed 24 Russian drones overnight, warns of more attacks

Russian forces launched an unsuccessful overnight drone attack on Ukraine on Thursday, mainly targeting central regions and the capital Kyiv, the Ukrainian military said.

Anti-aircraft defences downed all 24 drones, country’s military command said in a morning report.

“There’s a major danger of further aviation and missile attack across the entire territory (of Ukraine),” it said in a statement.

Kyiv’s regional administration said that 15 out of 24 drones have been downed around the Ukrainian capital and that there were no damages. It also warned people about the possibility of more missile attacks during the day.

3:40am: Ukraine’s Zelensky urges UN action on deportations

President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged a senior UN official to help find a way to resolve what Ukrainian authorities decry as a serious consequence of 11 months of war – the deportation to Russia of thousands of adults and children.

Ukraine has for months denounced reports of mass deportations to Russia, often to remote regions thousands of kilometres from Ukraine. Russia denies any suggestion of mistreatment or criminal intent, describing the mass movements as evacuations.

“The discussion focused above all on our people that the occupiers have deported to Russia,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address, referring to talks with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi earlier on Wednesday. “These are adults, these are our children. A mechanism is needed to protect and bring back people and to bring to account all those who are guilty of deportations. I am certain the UN institutions can show leadership in resolving this issue.”

>> Mother Russia: Maria Lvova-Belova, the Putin ally deporting Ukrainian children

 

© France Médias Monde graphic studio

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)

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