Russia announced this Wednesday morning that it had broken through the Ukrainian defenses in Lugansk, one of the Donbass territories declared Russian territory last year and guarantees that the Ukrainian resistance was forced to retreat three kilometers.
Lugansk is one of the front-line territories of the war and where, these days, the most visible signs of the much talked about Russian offensive are taking place. TO TSF it is about 900 kilometers to the west, in Odessa, where there is no one who has not had a friend or family member killed or wounded in the war.
We returned to this city ten months later. Since April 2022, the dependence on generators has increased substantially among the population. See you all over town. Virtually every shop, cafe, and restaurant has one, from the largest to the smallest. Without generators it is impossible to work.
Still, there is a lot more trading going on. The Café Central, for example, was closed a year ago, like much of the historic center of Odessa, and today it caters to everyone who wants to go.
Differences are also observed in the accessions. While the entire area was fortified a year ago and inaccessible to anyone who didn’t live here, today the only remnant of that fortification is the Potemkin Stairs, which is still fenced off and has a military checkpoint.
The monument to Catherine the Great was also removed. Instead of the statue of the Russian tsarina who founded Odessa there is now a Ukrainian flag.
At night, only the city center is illuminated and there are still power outages between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in the morning. A period that coincides with the curfew.
Although life is moving more calmly, signs of concern continue to arrive in Odessa. There are many people fleeing Kherson due to the return of the attacks. Russian troops are on the other side of the river that divides the city. A short distance that makes it often not possible to activate the alarm system on time.
Source: TSF
