Drone terror in Odessa – report from Ukraine

The old town of the port city of Odessa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Despite the war, it has lost little of its Mediterranean charm. The city center was built on the orders of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great at the end of the 18th century – in a checkerboard pattern.

Russian rockets did severely damage the imposing Transfiguration Cathedral and destroyed the modern but ugly high-rise “Hotel Odessa” down by the harbor. Nevertheless, the Odessians go about their business as if nothing had happened. The famous opera, one of the city’s showpieces, still offers performances. The nightlife also continues, just postponed a little because the curfew starts at midnight.

The drone attack here in the video:

We are sitting in the winter garden of a restaurant, dinner has been eaten, no air alarm is disturbing the relaxed atmosphere. Restaurant employees have just put up the Christmas decorations. Suddenly the staccato of anti-aircraft fire can be heard.

Like in World War II

Beams from headlights scan the night sky, searching for the black Russian Geran drones. Because of their noisy propeller engines, Ukrainians disparagingly call them mopeds. The Russian word “Geran” means geranium. Russia has fun naming many of its weapons after flowers, such as gerbera, peony, mallow or tulip.

The origin of the “geranium” is actually Iran, where the missile is called Shahid, i.e. martyr. This is apt because the warhead, which weighs an estimated 50 kilograms, explodes upon impact with the ground. Today the small aircraft are also manufactured under license in Russia.

A real firework display of tracer bullets and isolated yellow dots from anti-aircraft missiles has now broken out in the sky. The drones usually come from the nearby Crimean peninsula across the sea to Odessa. The port through which Ukraine exports some of its grain is among the preferred destinations, but also government buildings or the city’s energy infrastructure. Like most Russian stand-off weapons, the “geraniums” are not particularly precise. They also often crash into residential areas with no military significance.

The roar of the “geraniums”

We now hear the two-stroke engine of a “geranium” for the first time; it flies past the restaurant, invisible to us, and detonates some distance away. The play or radio play is repeated several times. Just before impact, the gunners of the anti-aircraft cannons and the heavy machine guns mounted on pick-ups make one last effort to shoot down the drone. The staccato increases and subsides immediately after the impact – until the next drone.

Cars and pedestrians are still on the streets. Some Odessians watch their cell phone screens at such moments. Private channels on the Telegram messaging service explain to people how many drones or ballistic missiles are currently heading for Odessa and when they can be expected to arrive. Many residents don’t take the danger posed by drones too seriously because the two-stroke engines of the “geraniums” can be heard early on. With ballistic missiles there is hardly any warning time. Their warheads are around ten times larger – and correspondingly more deadly.

Heavy detonations can now be heard again and again, whenever a “Geranium” or a Russian cruise missile explodes. By sending swarms of drones ahead, which are then followed by large rockets or cruise missiles, the Russians are trying to confuse and overload the Ukrainian air defense. So missiles keep coming through the defensive fire.

Giggling after the attack

As we stand on the street watching the fireworks, the roar of a “geranium” approaches again. Then she throws herself at her target, audible as the engine roars and the propeller spins due to the acceleration. The sound is somewhat reminiscent of the howl of German dive bombers in World War II. Now it’s high time to go inside the house. Even as I open the door, the “geranium” explodes at the end of the street, right around the corner. A yellow flash pierces the night. Shards of glass from the winter garden in which we were sitting a short time ago fly through the air, and a few wooden slats from the outside cladding are torn from their anchorage by the pressure wave.

Minutes later, restaurant employees begin sweeping up the broken glass. They giggle and appear in a good mood – a phenomenon I have seen in wars all over the world, when people have survived a dangerous situation without harm.

An ambulance roars up as another “geranium” explodes. The fire department also comes and lays hoses. A concert hall in a magnificent, neoclassical building was hit. The residents seem calm. Rockets and cruise missiles have hit here before. Authorities will later report one death and ten injuries. We have seen enough and retreat to our inconspicuous hotel on the outskirts of the city, where no “geraniums” are to be expected.