The choke-point city that’s key to Putin’s sinister imperial plans

This summer, as it floundered on the battlefield, Russia pivoted to a crushing new strategy: strangling Ukraine via one of its most strategic cities. Known as the pearl of the Black Sea, the port city of Odesa has been a key target for Russia since the first days of its full-scale invasion. For Vladimir Putin, however, Odesa represents far more than just an economic target. The traditionally Russian-facing city on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast is one of the showpieces in Putin’s imperialist fantasy of Novorossiya, or New Russia. Odesa, the Russian President declared in 2024, “is a Russian city”. For years, Odesa escaped the worst of Moscow’s brutalities. But it now faces a bleak new reality, suffering under a de facto blockade while also being hit by drones and missiles. Putin hopes to bring not just the city to its knees, but the whole of the country. Russia’s campaign to strangle Ukraine Choking off Odesa, the third-largest city in Ukraine before the war, is seen as crucial as Russia aims to cripple the country’s maritime trade and crush it economically. Odesa is the most important port still under Ukrainian control and is “one of the major outlets for Ukrainian exports and an important source of economic revenue for Ukraine’s wartime economy,” said Luke Coffey, a foreign policy expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “This is one reason why Russia has paid particular attention to the city.”The vast majority of Ukraine’s commodity exports are transported by sea, according to the Council on Geostrategy, including 70 per cent of all the grain it produces. Black Sea ports handle 90 per cent of grain exports, with Odesa the main one. A monument of Catherine the Great of Russia, who founded Odesa in 1794. Activists added an executioner’s hood and a rope with a noose in her hand (Photo: Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP) “Odesa is crucial for Ukraine both from an economic point of view and as a symbol of Ukraine’s continuing existence as a maritime nation,” said Basil Germond, the chair of international security at Lancaster University. “Its survival defies Russia’s attempt to reduce Ukraine to a landlocked country.” Russia is hammering Ukraine While a July 2022 deal that Russia was part of enabled grain exports, allowing a steady flow of commercial vessels in and out, over the summer that situation changed. On 22 July, for the first time since the corridor opened, no ships entered the ports around Odesa. Moscow is now trying to shut down that maritime route by force. Russia, which is losing tens of thousands of men and barely advancing on the battlefields, has turned to bombarding Ukraine’s energy and economy. Around Odesa, it has targeted dry cargo vessels, warehouses, logistics facilities, fuel depots, railway yards and berths. “The campaign against Odesa has to be understood as economic warfare conducted through the maritime domain,” said Germond. “By attacking ports and civilian shipping, Moscow is trying to transfer some of that pressure back on to Ukraine, by raising the economic cost of trade and eroding international confidence in the safety of the Black Sea corridor.” Smoke from a fire rises after a Russian missile strike on Odesa on 29 July, 2026 (Photo: Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty) Other nearby port cities have also been hit, with three people killed and 11 injured in a Russian strike on a market in Chornomorsk this week. On Thursday, Russia struck Odesa again, hitting a multistorey residential building. ‘This comes at a terrible time for Ukraine’ In recent weeks, civilian cargo ships have also been attacked by drones in the Black Sea, with over 30 sailors killed or reported missing in October alone. Romania has accused Russia of “systematic” strikes on civilian ships. Moscow has denied being behind the attacks. In the past, Ukraine has attacked Russian tankers in the Black Sea as part of its campaign to cut off the oil profits fuelling Moscow’s war economy. On 19 October, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority issued a statement saying that Russia “continues to purposefully attack Ukrainian ports and the civilian fleet… Each such attack creates additional risks for shipping, complicates insurance, increases the cost of transportation and directly affects Ukrainian exports.” Russia’s attacks have cut Ukraine’s ability to export from its seaports by up to 95 per cent, according to the maritime risk management firm Ambrey. Odesa is the most important port still under Ukrainian control and a major source of economic revenue for its wartime economy (Photo: Anastasia Monastyrska/Getty) Meanwhile, Ukraine-related war insurance has climbed as high as 20 per cent, four times the levels seen during the 1980s tanker wars and above anything charged in the Second World War. “Over the past year, Russia has ramped up its attacks against Odesa, in part because Ukraine has been successful in restoring the operations of its Black Sea ports,” said Coffey. “Moscow wants to deny Ukraine this important source of revenue and undermine its wartime economy.” The National Bank of Ukraine said last month that Ukraine’s losses due to the maritime blockade and attacks would reach $6.6bn (£5bn) in the second half of 2026. Ukraine has diverted some of its exports through the Danube River and overland transportation links via Moldova, Romania and Poland, but alternatives cannot fully compensate for the loss of Odesa’s port capacity. “This comes at a terrible time for Ukraine economically,” said the Council on Geostrategy. “The loss of grain exports after a super harvest is a massive hit on Ukraine’s revenue this year and on the ability of Ukraine’s farmers to sow for next year.” Putin’s Ukraine plans aren’t complete without Odesa There is also a deeper strategic objective for Russia. “A sovereign and outward-looking Ukrainian port on the Black Sea is a standing rejection of [Putin’s] imperial narrative,” said Germond. “That makes the city strategically important, but also intensely symbolic. Every vessel that reaches or leaves its ports shows that Russia has failed to establish control over the north-western Black Sea and has failed to erase Ukraine as a maritime nation.” Odesa is also venerated as a quintessential Russian city in the Russian imagination, a place where idolised poet Alexander Pushkin spent his exile. A Russian air attack on a shopping centre in the Odesa region this month (Photo: Ukrainian Emergency Service/AFP) For Putin, the city is a vital part of his cherished wish to re-establish a Russian sphere of influence that includes much of eastern and southern Ukraine. “There is also no doubt that Putin sees Odesa as part of his ambition to re-establish the former imperial Russian region of Novorossiya,” said Coffey. “Until recently, Odesa had a majority Russian-speaking population and was considered a region of Ukraine with relatively close historical and cultural ties to Russia.” Following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, this manifested in pro-Russian demonstrations and clashes with pro-Ukrainian groups. “However, attitudes toward Russia have changed dramatically since the full-scale invasion in 2022,” he added. “Even many of those in Odesa who previously had close ties to Russia have turned against Moscow.” This mood shift was encapsulated most notably when citizens voted to remove a monument to Catherine the Great, the city’s founder, in 2022, as part of the country’s post-invasion “de-Russification” campaign. “I have no doubt that Russia will never consider its plans for Ukraine complete until it controls Odesa,” said Coffey. However, more than four years into his war, and despite renewed targeting, Putin appears no closer to seizing this prize. “Ukraine has shown a strong capacity to repair infrastructure, adapt its export routes and maintain a maritime corridor under wartime conditions,” said Germond. “Moscow’s attacks will not break Ukraine’s determination to remain economically connected to the world.”