I used to be caught in a Russian assault final evening – that is Ukraine’s brutal actuality as talks grind on

In the early hours of Tuesday morning I was at the receiving end of one of the deadly Russian mass drone attacks that regularly terrorise Ukrainian cities.

Much of my hotel near the centre of the Black Sea port city of Odesa was wrecked when Shahed drones hit close by, setting buildings opposite ablaze and blowing out walls, shattering windows and collapsing ceilings where I was staying.

I had slept through the sirens warning of an approaching attack and was wrenched out of my slumber by the first enormous explosion which blew out windows in my room in the Hotel Alarus at around 2.20am.

As I hurriedly pulled on clothes and boots, drones came diving in on their final approach, emitting a shrill other-worldly scream like that of German Stuka dive bombers in WW2 movies.

Twice I hit the floor in the space between my bed and the bathroom wall – the furthest point in my room from the outside.

During these seconds that seem like an age I felt utterly helpless and mouthed “F***, f***, f***. Just get it over with”.

As more drones kept coming, I got to the basement shelter and joined 11 staff and guests there in the dark.

People, some in nighties, some barefoot, mostly sat silently with a few faces dimly lit by screen light as they scanned smartphones for any news.

Locals had an app showing the approach of missiles or drones around Odesa. Some cried while others covered their ears or pulled friends close as tension mounted, waiting for an explosion.

Some of the explosions blew out the hotel’s glass front doors and seemed to search us out sending showers of broken glass down the basement stairs.

Nobody at the hotel was injured but early reports said at least 23 people, including some kids and a pregnant woman, were injured in the raid. At least one victim is very badly injured and rescue workers are searching for bodies under rubble.

This is the reality in Ukraine, as peace talks grind on interminably, with little sense of progress.

In everyday life in Odesa, delapidated generators thrum outside shops, restaurants, residential and office buildings fight a losing battle against power cuts and freezing temperatures on the snow and ice-covered streets.

Some sounds have disappeared completely from Odesa’s urban soundtrack – the building-shaking trundle of trams along the tracks that lace the city’s boulevards and the trolleybuses whose power-transmitting poles can cause magnificent showers of sparks where they connect to icy electric cables high above the streets, providing delight for kids.

Intensified Russian aerial strikes over recent months have knocked out much of the region’s energy-generating infrastructure forcing these electricity-sucking trams and trolleybuses to a halt.

Many Odesa residents have moved away from the city as it has become a priority target for Moscow. The population, at around a million, remains at pre-war levels because those moving out have been replaced by refugees fleeing fighting further east.

Vera, 23, a student, lives in an apartment block in the northeastern suburb of the city and these high-rise buildings suffer some of the harshest misery because of aerial attacks and power cuts.

She said these cuts, sometimes lasting five days, mean many people, especially the elderly, handicapped and people with young children face catastrophic conditions.

“Imagine having to descend or ascend to the fourteenth floor of an apartment block – 28 flights of stairs – if you’re frail or handicapped. Imagine a mother carrying her child and a baby buggy. What if she has two children? If you’re in a wheelchair you’re trapped.

“On this New Year’s Eve six people, including three children, were injured when drones hit apartment blocks close to us. On New Years’s Eve 2024 drones killed a friend of mine who was on a balcony in our building having a cigarette. Perhaps the Russians are starting a tradition.”

The huge power outages caused by the savage uptick in Russian aerial attacks have coincided with Ukraine’s coldest winter in years with sub-zero temperatures.

Many of Ukraine’s Soviet-era residential high-rises rely on an archaic and inefficient form of central heating where hot water is piped in from a hot water plant miles away. When one of the water plants is destroyed thousands of homes quickly freeze. With electricity knocked out for days at a time electric heaters become useless.

The Russians have been targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the start of the full-blown war and options for replacement equipment have been severely limited. Many electrical engineers preparing damaged plant have been killed in targeted drone attacks.

The frontlines start about 60 miles to the east of Odesa but military spokesman, Major Dmytro Pletenchuk, explains that the Russians can launch missiles and drones from submarines in the Black Sea off Odesa or Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula they occupy some 100 miles from the city.

“They use ballistic missiles which travel so fast they arrive before people can react to the sirens and find shelter,” he said.

He said the one principle aim was to cripple the three ports – in the city centre and two, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi, nearby along the coast – which collectively form Ukraine’s most important remaining opening for sea trade.

“These ports are the main outlet for Ukraine’s agricultural exports, including grains and sunflower oil which are critical foodstuffs for many Third World countries. The drones target storage containers and convoys of trucks bringing cargo to the ports from producers all over Ukraine,” said Pletenchuk. “Recently they hit a container with tens of thousands of litres of sunflower oil which drained into the sea and can cause as much ecological damage as if it was fuel oil.”

The ports are one of the city’s main employers. It is also an important industrial, business, IT and academic centre including scientific research, chemicals manufacture, and machine-building.

Pletenchuk said another intention is to demoralise and sow terror among the civilian population by striking energy infrastructure to leave people in the dark and frozen and by targeting residential buildings.

A doctor whose first name is Svyatoslav but preferred not to have his surname published, is a senior member of the World Health Organisation team in southern Ukraine.

He called the Russian attacks that keep millions of Ukrainians freezing “Pure terrorism”. “They are not hitting the military but are striking at targets to make normal life impossible for ordinary people.”

“This terror is meant to bring people to their knees. They think Ukrainians will plead with their government to end the war at any price; for us to surrender. Before 2022 I knew a lot of people in Odesa who didn’t think of Russia as their enemy. Now I think very few like that remain. We have no choice but too fight on.

Ukrainians willingness to help each other is an essential component of the country’s spirit to keep going.

Odesa, as other large cities, has a network of dozens of “Punkt Nezlamonist” – “Points of Unbroken Resilience” providing a place to warm up, have a warm drink and a meal, re-charge cellphones, computers and gadgets, and find a place to speak.

Some facilities provide help for just some needs – many supermarkets have gadget charging points, places to warm up or air raid shelters.

A year ago many people interviewed in the eastern Ukrainian frontline town of Kupyansk believed that the newly-inaugurated US President Donald Tump might be able to deliver on his promise to quickly end the war.

But nobody The Independent spoke to had any faith Trump-brokered peace talks, which last week brought Ukrainian, US and Russian delegations to the UAE, will yield a fair peace or any peace at all. After the first day of talks last Friday, Russia launched a massive aerial attack against cities across Ukraine.

Volunteer Roman asked: “What kind of a peace agreement can you expect from Russia when on the night of the first day’s talks they send 400 drones and missiles to kill us?”

Vera, the student, said: “Trump doesn’t feel human emotions, he doesn’t care about Ukrainians – it’s all about greed and business to him.”

Source: independent.co.uk