By Galina Korol | 2024-05-16

KYIV -- Since Russia unleashed its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Odesa has been one of the cities under constant fire from various types of weapons, from Shahed drones to ballistic missiles.

The latest large attack occurred overnight on May 1, Ukrainian media reported.

Ballistic missiles struck Odesa, damaging "a postal administrative building and postal storage facilities ... Fourteen people were injured, and one man was hospitalized," Ukrainian Southern Defense Forces said on Telegram May 2.

Russia hit Odesa with another missile strike on April 29. Using cluster munitions, it hit an upscale neighborhood where many civilians, including children, were out and about. Five civilians were killed and more than 30 wounded.

The same day, the Palace of Students at the Odesa Law Academy was severely damaged by a fire.

Ballistic missiles

Odesa is vulnerable to missile attacks from the nearby Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, say analysts.

"A ballistic missile ascends very fast, so it's very hard to respond quickly and effectively," said Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and an analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future.

Low-flying drones coming over the Black Sea are also "hard to spot," he told Kontur.

Russia has turned to ballistic missiles after finding less success with other weapons early in the war, said Alexander Kovalenko of Odesa, a military and political correspondent for the website InfoResist.

Russia moved away from using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones because "our mobile interception forces shoot down the majority of kamikaze drones," he said.

P-800 Oniks missiles "had problems with accuracy" and proved "vulnerable to electronic warfare," he said.

"But it's impossible to intercept ballistic missiles in Odesa and Odesa province ... so the Russians can inflict these attacks with impunity."

Putin's plan

The continuous bombardment of civilians in the city is Russia's retaliation for the population's support of Ukrainian independence, said Stupak.

Russia has been trying to plant the Russian flag over Odesa since 2014, he said.

But it could not conquer Odesa in the early months of the full-scale invasion because Ukraine prevented Russian infantry from storming the beach in Odesa.

The Russians "were really counting on that and on approaching Odesa with large ships, and then many Russian marines would land and begin fighting in Odesa," he said.

Russia "made assumptions" based on Ukraine's lack of a navy, he added.

Russia spent many years dreaming up its plan to take Odesa, said Mykhailo Prytula, a reservist colonel in the SBU and a specialist on military counterintelligence.

"Remember that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin declared this war when he was prime minister, on April 7, 2008, in Vienna ... he said expressly that he would occupy Crimea and start a war in Donbas province," he told Kontur.

"Then on April 21, 2008, Russian Journal -- a Kremlin mouthpiece -- ran an article with the headline 'Operation Clockwork Orange' that revealed the strategic intention and strategic plan of this war," he said.

A comprehensive analysis of the Russian Journal story now shows clearly that "the Russians ... have begun to carry out" the plan to capture Ukraine, Prytula said.

However, Ukraine destroying much of the Black Sea Fleet's combat capacity shut down all of Putin's options for storming Odesa, he added.

Corridor to Transnistria

Although chances of a Russian invasion of Odesa by sea are close to zero, Russia will not leave Odesa alone, Prytula said.

This is because "the Russians dream of seizing the corridor to Transnistria and [the rest of] Moldova," he said. "In this case Odesa is a key city."

About 1,000 Russian troops have been in Transnistria, a breakaway part of Moldova, since 1992.

The Kremlin has "many old Soviet weapons" in Transnistria "that were delivered there from a group of Soviet forces in Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland," he said.

If Russia entered Transnistria in force, it would be able to march right up to NATO countries -- notably Romania -- and to demonstrate its ambitions of reshuffling the world order, say analysts.

But Ukraine is committed to thwarting Russian dreams of moving into Odesa province, said Prytula.

Kyiv is aware that Russia has various options for attacking Odesa province overland, including one from Belarus, he said, adding that Ukraine is prepared for Russian attempts to come from various directions.

"Everything has been dug up and mined, there are trenches and hedgehog antitank obstacles, so even if they try, they won't advance in [tank] columns quickly," he said.

Russian agents

As a result, now Russia is hoping to subvert "Odesa from within so it falls on its own," Stupak said.

That strategy hinges on traitors in Odesa.

"There are agents operating for Russia. The SBU is trying to combat this, but unfortunately, you can't catch everyone at once, and it's a rather complicated process to prove that someone is a Russian intelligence agent," Kovalenko said.

Some residents of Odesa are serving as spotters to help the Kremlin conduct "missile terrorism," he said.

"[The Russians] are now trying to pressure the people of Odesa," Prytula said. "This is terrorism against the population to make the people leave their homes and the city so that there's no one to defend Odesa."

Now the only effective way to guarantee security for Odesa is to aggressively attack the source of harm, say observers.

"First of all you need to destroy the air defense systems in Crimea and also destroy the launchers there and the aircraft ... that launch these missiles from the airspace over Crimea," Prytula said.