Odesa has suffered two weeks of missile attacks on the defensive positions of the city and the region. On the first day of the invasion, Feb. 24., those strikes were very intense; then they became sporadic.
Initially, the Russian Black Sea Fleet implemented a naval blockade of ports to prevent commercial traffic and strangle the Ukrainian economy. To complete the blockade of the sea routes from the south, they seized Snake Island, situated off the Danube delta. This operation became famous all over the world for the heroic refusal to surrender by a small group of Ukrainian border guards in the face of the overwhelming Russian naval force.
During the second week of the invasion, Russian navy teams constantly assayed Ukrainian defences along the coast. Their threatening presence triggered predictions of landings, which did not materialize. During one of these night raids, a coastal defence missile battery hit one of the most modern ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Russian patrol boat “Vasily Bykov” with a crew of 32 sailors, seriously damaging it.
Currently, the bulk of the Russian fleet is at anchor behind Cape Tarkhantut in Crimea, a sheltered position that allows it to return quickly to the zone of operations off the coasts of the Odessa region.
Some international experts have hypothesized that the navy has exhausted the stocks of cruise missile Kalibr missiles. This hypothesis is consistent with the purported plans of the Russian offensive in Ukraine to complete the operations within two weeks.
