At the first light of dawn the eyes of all of Odessa are focused on the sea in search of a column of smoke or something that can confirm the rumors of the night, namely that
the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the cruiser Moskva, is in flames adrift
.
No plume of smoke is visible from the horizon but the confirmation comes anyway, from the Telegram channel of the Odessa administration, around nine: "The Moskva was damaged by our missiles, it is on fire and unusable, the bowls of launch of missiles that hit our city from the sea, thus dropping from 70 to 54. Glory to Ukraine ".
Shortly after, the spokesman for the city administration of Odessa, Sergei Bratchuk, warned that it will not be an easy day: "We fear that the enemy prepares a retaliation on the city.
The probability of missile attacks is very high
".
The prediction turns out to be spot on in less than an hour, a roar rises from the port area and shakes the windows in the center, the sirens start and whoever can slip into the cellar.
A few minutes pass and the explosion is followed by two more, this time high in the sky.
"The Ukrainian anti-aircraft is intercepting the attacks" explain from the southern operational command.
On the site and on the damage of the first explosion, however, absolute silence.
If the divisions of Mykolaiv, the Ukrainian bastion that is repelling the assault of Moscow on the coast line, are thinking about stopping the attack by land, they
have to think for themselves to neutralize the dangers that come from the sea in Odessa and, finished the anti-aircraft alarms, on the beaches they start digging again
.
Towards April, traditionally the Luzanika bathing establishments, north of the city, begin to rebuild the restaurant terraces and umbrellas to accommodate tourists, mostly Russian, in the summer.
This year, however, in order to receive the Russians, trenches are being dug in place of the verandas and with the same precision of interval with which the umbrellas are distanced, the voluntary militias are placing mines on the entire beach.
In Odessa today, however, not only trenches are being dug but also pits, those of Colonel Vasily Teleguz and Lieutenant Mykola Spendovsky killed in the village of Snigurivka just outside Mykolaiv by the Russian artillery.
Their coffins wrapped in the Ukrainian flag remained over an hour in front of the Transfiguration Cathedral to receive the last farewells of the family and city authorities
.
Next to the coffins a banner, "Glory to our heroes who died to defend Odessa and the homeland".
In the middle of the afternoon the coffins are carried away on the shoulders by a navy platoon, they will be transferred to the villages of origin of the soldiers, while the funeral procession passes at the bottom of the Preobrazhenska street a glimpse of the sea is glimpsed, there are those who stretch their noses, but of ships burning at