Odesa is facing a fresh surge of Russian strikes on its Black Sea port infrastructure, with the BBC reporting that residents of the Ukrainian city now describe feeling that no one is safe from attacks that have repeatedly hit port facilities in recent days.
The BBC reports that the strikes have targeted infrastructure at Odesa's port, a hub for Ukrainian grain and cargo exports, and have taken a toll on the city and the people living in it. According to the BBC, residents described the danger as pervasive, with strikes reaching areas of the city that had previously felt removed from the front lines of the war.
The intensified targeting of Odesa comes as both Russia and Ukraine escalate long-range strikes on infrastructure far from the contact line. Ukraine has separately struck deep into Russian territory in recent days, hitting oil refineries hundreds of miles from the border in an effort Kyiv says is meant to curb the revenues financing Moscow's war. The BBC's account of the Odesa strikes forms part of the same broader pattern of both sides expanding the geography and infrastructure targets of the conflict, more than four years after Russia's full-scale invasion began.
The BBC's reporting from Odesa describes a city adjusting to a new phase of danger, in which port facilities that keep the city's economy running have become recurring targets. The report does not specify casualty figures or the total extent of the damage, but it depicts a population increasingly on edge as strikes on the port have become more frequent. For a city whose economy and daily life are closely tied to its harbor, the repeated targeting of port infrastructure has added a layer of uncertainty to routines that had, at points earlier in the war, felt comparatively settled.
With diplomacy stalled and neither side signaling a pullback from long-range strikes, residents and officials in Odesa are bracing for the attacks on the city's port infrastructure to continue, even as the wider war shows no sign of a negotiated resolution.