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Russia planning to bomb port city of Odesa, claims Zelenskyy | Russia-Ukraine war News


There was no immediate comment from the Russian military after Ukraine’s president said an attack on the city of one million would become a ‘war crime’.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Russian forces were preparing to bombard the large port city of Odesa on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

“They are preparing to bomb Odesa,” Zelenskyy said in a televised address on Sunday.

“The Russians always come to Odesa. They always just feel warm in Odesa. Only sincerity. And now what? Plant a bomb against Odesa? Artillery against Odesa? Missile against Odesa? ” he continued, without explaining. “It would be a war crime. It would be a historic crime.”

There was no immediate Russian comment, issued a invasion against Ukraine from the air, on land and at sea on 24 February.

Russian forces have since made much progress, overrunning the city of Kherson and besieging the port of Mariupol, but Odesa has so far been largely spared.

INTERACTIVE Russia-Ukraine Map Who Controls What's in Ukraine DAY 11
(Al Jazeera)

About a million people live in Odesa, a cosmopolitan harbor on Ukraine’s southern coast with both Ukrainian and Russian speakers as well as Bulgarian and Jewish minorities.

Russia’s advance from partially occupied Crimea has turned east to align itself with Russian-backed separatists and capture the port of Mariupol in the Sea of ​​Azov.

But part of the force also advanced west to Kherson, on the road towards Odesa. The city is also near the border of Moldova and the disputed region of Transnistria.

“This is the largest seaport; 70% of our exports go through sea,” Hanna Shelest, director of security programs at the Ukraine Prism consultancy, told Al Jazeera.

Reporting from Lviv, in western Ukraine, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull said the possibility of capturing Odesa, along with other southern port cities, would “turn Ukraine into a landlocked state”.

“There have been rumors for days now that the possibility is there – Russian forces are strategically expanding their strategic reach north of Crimea, through Kherson and onward through the town of Mykolaiv, possibly trying to double back again. Odesa and join. with naval landings from components of the Black Sea fleet hovered over the horizon there for several days,” he added.

“That being said – whether Zelenskyy is referring to specific intelligence remains unclear.”

During the first 11 days of the conflict, Russian forces also entered 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 United Nations says more than 1.5 million civilians have been displaced by the fighting.



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