Russia preparing to shell port city of Odesa, Zelensky warns
Ukrainian president says Russians had always been welcome in resort city; ‘and now what? Bombs against Odesa?’
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Sunday that Russian forces are preparing to shell Odesa, a historic port city on the Black Sea coast.
“They are preparing to bomb Odesa. Odesa!” he declared, in a video address.
“Russians have always come to Odesa. They have always felt only warmth in Odesa. Only sincerity. And now what? Bombs against Odesa? Artillery against Odesa? Missiles against Odesa?” he asked.
“It will be a war crime. It will be a historical crime.”
Russian forces have made progress in southern Ukraine since their February 24 invasion, overrunning the city of Kherson and besieging the port of Mariupol, but Odesa has so far been largely spared.
Almost a million people live in Odesa, a cosmopolitan harbor on Ukraine’s southern coast with both Ukrainian and Russian speakers and Bulgarian and Jewish minorities.
The Russian advance from occupied Crimea has in part turned east to link up with Russian-backed separatists and to seize the Azov Sea port of Mariupol.
But another part of the force has also headed west to Kherson, on the road towards Odesa. The city is also close to the Moldovan border and the Russian-occupied region of Transnistria.
During the first 11 days of the conflict, Russian forces from Belarus have also advanced on the capital Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, while another group bombarded the northern city of Kharkiv.
Several cities have been bombed and shelled and the UN estimates that more than a million and a half civilians have been driven from their homes by the fighting.
The Times of Israel Community.