‘From land to food, we are on the front line’: Why the fate of Odesa is crucial for us all

Anton Chekhov is said to have joked he spent half his salary on ice cream in the city. Alexander Pushkin penned parts of his masterpiece Eugene Onegin there. And Nikolai Gogol, when wintering in town, wrote what would ultimately become the discarded second part of Dead Souls in a flat near the Potemkin Stairs.

These literary greats are just some of the Russia-claimed historical figures who have descended on the Ukrainian city of Odesa, founded by Catherine the Great in 1794 as the jewel in the crown of her empire. It is this overly romanticised, Russian-dominated history of Odesa that makes it such a prize for Vladimir Putin.

Since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, his eyes have been on Odesa, the “pearl of the Black Sea” that is crucially Ukraine’s biggest commercial port, a supply lifeline, and the predominantly Russian-speaking gateway to the north and west.