Because Odessa is important for both Ukraine and Russia

The streets of Odessa are bustling again, but the occasional missile attacks stave off any sense of normality. The elaborate stone buildings of the old town are supported by sandbags. Few people venture to the beach to take a dip in the Black Sea, which is now heavily mined, and a curfew at ten in the evening keeps the approximately five hundred thousand inhabitants who have not fled locked in their homes. For now, the city is breathing a sigh of relief: Russia has downsized the ambitions of its invasion and is focusing on the east of the country.

But the worst could still come. Odessa has enormous tactical, symbolic and economic significance. For the rest of the world, the fate of the port will determine the severity of a growing food crisis. Why is Odessa so important?

Nicknamed the “pearl on the sea”, the third largest city in Ukraine was once a jewel of the Russian empire. Founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great, it became a trading center and a refuge for writers (it is said that Chekhov consumed large quantities of ice cream there, and that Pushkin spent 13 months there). Its historical significance perhaps helped protect the city center from the worst Russian attacks, unlike Mariupol, the largest port on the Sea of ​​Azov, five hundred kilometers to the east. As in much of eastern Ukraine, Odessa’s population is largely Russian-speaking, although the war has strengthened its Ukrainian identity.

Sanctions against wheat
The city is also fundamental from an economic point of view. More than 70 percent of pre-war Ukrainian exports passed through the Black Sea ports, including Odessa, two other neighbors (Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk), and Mykolaiv to the east. The Russian blockade of the Black Sea and the mines placed on the ground by Ukraine, for defensive purposes, have blocked all shipments, including those of wheat, of which Ukraine was the fifth largest exporter in the world. This has helped push grain prices up by more than 50 percent this year. On May 24, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, accused Russia of using hunger as a weapon. Russia, the world‘s largest wheat exporter in 2021, took advantage of near-record prices. And now it is using the food shortage as a bargaining chip, offering to unlock ports in exchange for the Western lifting of sanctions.

The pressure for the reopening of the ports of the Mero Sea is destined to increase. A new harvest will start in about a month, but Ukraine does not have the space to store it. According to Sławomir Matuszak of the Center for Oriental Studies, a Warsaw-based institution, next season will bring in thirty million tons of crops for export, in addition to the twenty million tons already in the silos. In total, about fifty times more than the country has exported in the last month.

Alternative rail and road routes can carry only a fraction of the usual exports, with much higher transport costs than those by sea. World leaders are desperate for ways to unblock Ukrainian exports, hitherto unsuccessful.

For now, Russia is concentrating its military efforts in the eastern Donbass region. But it has extinguished the last outbreaks of resistance in Mariupol and some fear it may turn itself back into menacing, for example by advancing west via Mykolaiv, 130 kilometers away, through Odessa, to Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region of Moldova on which it has placed its eyes.

Russian missiles mainly targeted infrastructure, as in the case of multiple attacks on the city airport and the nearby Zatoka bridge, which was the main route for supplies from Romania. But they also hit residential buildings and shopping centers. An amphibious attack seems unlikely. Taking the city would be the most complex part of Moscow’s drive to seize the coast and isolate Ukraine. So far Odessa has resisted Russian aggression. The fate of the city will be fundamental, far beyond the borders of Ukraine.

(Translation by Federico Ferrone)