Odessa: Ukraine's secret weapon?
Odessa: Ukraine’s secret weapon?
This is Odessa in Southern Ukraine.
Its streets are lined with cafés.
It has a relatively young population,
a beautiful Black sea coastline
and a major international port.
But more importantly,
Ukrainians see it
as one of their most laid-back cities
with residents who are famous
for their sense of humour.
Odessa had an image
of a very peaceful and tolerant city
in the old, former Soviet-Union.
A city of international communication,
where some kind of fighting
between people on national base
is absolutely impossible.
But behind this relaxed facade
lies a city that has been under attack.
And its response may have been
one of the most important reactions
in Ukraine’s recent troubled history.
Because of the last developments
in the east and in Crimea,
Odessa became the Ukrainian city,
by its consciousness,
by its identification.
In Ukraine, Odessa is about as far
away as you can get from Russia.
But Russia has come to Odessa.
The Russian hybrid campaign
in Ukraine has targeted Odessa,
perhaps because the region
is Russian-speaking.
But if the attackers thought that this
would help them, they miscalculated.
In Odessa, most people
are speaking Russian language,
but it doesn’t mean that it is
a kind of Russian city, which is...
It is like Montreal is not in France and
Sydney is not in England of course.
The Russian language plays
a key role in Odessa’s battle.
All my colleagues
at the university for example
speak Russian with each other.
This is my native language.
But this is also a key moment
when many Ukrainians are saying
that speaking Russian
doesn’t mean support for Russia.
Many, many people, many patriots,
who fight now in the east of Ukraine,
they do speak Russian language.
We don’t feel like Russian Federation
and Putin has the right
to privatise the Russian language
because this is the common heritage.
Because most of Odessa’s people
are Russian-speaking
they receive their news
from Russian channels
and that news has often
included disinformation.
It’s quite unique
that you have millions of people,
year after year, on a daily basis,
tuning in information,
TV coverage, news coverage
provided by the neighbouring state.
Odessa finally reacted and has now
cut off the offending channels
and it’s having an effect already.
I think it wasn’t a good decision
to cut those channels off
from our airspace basically,
the TV coverage space.
But it was needed because we are
already seeing some first results.
Some people who were brainwashed,
can no longer watch those.
And now deliberately
or reluctantly they are switching
to local channels
or the Ukrainian TV channels
and some of those people’s attitudes
are changing and shifting a little bit.
When support for Russia,
its aims and its activists,
did not materialize
as expected in Odessa,
different, more aggressive methods
tried to destabilize the city.
One was a series of bomb explosions
designed to sow fear
in the local population.
Although it has received
very little international attention,
Odessa has been hit
by literally dozens of small bombs
and this place was
a victim earlier on in 2015.
It’s a coordination centre
for volunteers fighting in the east.
As is the usual strategy
the bomb went off late at night.
There were no casualties,
but the authorities
fixed the damage
as quickly as possible
to eliminate the signs of instability
that the bombs were to create.
The city experienced over twenty
bomb attacks, always at night,
in the first six months of 2015,
but they did little to break
the resolve of the population.
The terroristic acts,
they were not successful.
They had a very short-term result.
So maybe one, two days
you felt that there is
some stress in the society,
but then people were forgetting them.
People on the streets confirm
that the bombs hadn’t affected
the Odessa way of life.
According to the news they are
bombing only some specific targets.
They are doing it during the night.
So for the tourists probably
there is nothing to worry about,
but it is definitely the case to look at.
How do you think this has affected
the atmosphere within the city?
Has it changed people’s
attitudes and actions?
I don’t think so. I don’t know
why they are doing it because...
It is pointless. Everyone is smiling,
lots of people, everything is the same.
I try not to worry at all
because all the worries
make our life much worse.
So I don’t worry about this. I think
our city is very nice, very touristic.
It’s not so nice weather, but anyway
we have plenty people outdoors.
So... Politic is politic, but life if life.
So, let's stay out of politic.
The hybrid attacks
weren’t finished though.
The disinformation and unattributed
rumours started to spread.
Again the idea was to generate panic.
When the mobilisation
campaign was announced,
in some of the villages,
Bulgarian, Moldavian, Gagauzian,
these special people started
to develop panic among the people...
For example, in one of the villages,
one person came and said
that tomorrow all men
will be called for mobilisation.
So the next day none of the men were
there because they ran to Moldova.
Soon the disinformation focused on
the danger of the pro-Russian enclave
in neighbouring Moldova
of Transnistria.
From time to time
appearing information
about the possible attack,
rather from the sea.
So, I mean some Crimean forces
coming by the sea,
or from Transnistria.
And usually people are not analysing
how realistic this threat is or not,
but for them that is enough.
With Russian troops
conducting exercises in Transnistria,
this was a rumour
that brought real fear.
Behind me is the land
that time forgot.
This is Transnistria, part of Moldova,
that fought a bloody war
to break away from that country.
This ended in the 90’s
and after that time
Transnistria declared itself
an independent state.
But it is not recognized
by most of the world
and it has an unsustainable economy.
First of all largely helped
by illegal smuggling across this patch
and many other in the border areas.
Secondly it depends
on handouts from Russia.
We are in between Crimea
and Transnistria.
That’s a vulnerable region.
A region open for destabilisation
and it seems to be
that Russia is using all kinds of tools
to destabilise Ukraine,
to have this kind of protracted,
slow-moving,
low-scale destabilisation.
It seems to me that one of the goals
they’re having, is exactly that.
Russia is one of the few countries
that recognises Transnistria.
As Russia’s aggression
in the east continues
and its attacks continue
in other parts of the Ukraine,
it’s here on Ukraine’s
western border that some feel
the next attacks could come from.
None of these destabilising efforts
worked, but then came a moment
which threatened to divide
the city like never before.
May the 2nd 2014.
On May the 2nd 2014, the building
behind me entered Ukrainian history.
There had been clashes
between pro-Ukrainian groups
and pro-Russian rebel groups
here outside.
But as the day ended many people
took refuge in that building
and a fire broke out.
Over forty people died.
So to give an indication
of what happened on May the 2nd.
The building had been taken over
some hours before
by the pro-Russian rebel groups.
They barricaded themselves in.
The fire broke out somewhere
around the right-hand side
and affected the stairs
quite intensively.
The security services,
the police and the fire brigade,
were slow to respond.
There were attempts
by the pro-Ukrainian groups outside
to help those
who were clearly in some distress
as the fire raged through the building,
but after several hours
it became clear
that at least forty people
had become trapped inside
and died of smoke inhalation.
This time was different.
There had been deaths and
not only at the trade union building,
but in the streets of the city.
Those clashes that perhaps
were planned, like street clashes,
turned into a four-hour battle
where AKM submachine guns
were used and molotov cocktails
as a result of which
six people were killed.
Six people died downtown
and the first victim
is commemorated behind me there.
He was a 27-year old
who was killed by a snipers bullet.
May the 2nd left both sides
blaming each other.
People in the city
also had little confidence
that the courts
would bring rapid justice.
So a group of journalists
headed by Sergiy Dibrov
decided to investigate for themselves
what happened on that day.
Finding a single point of view
is very difficult for many reasons.
Firstly, nobody expects to hear
the truth from the investigators,
the police, the courts, they don’t
have the confidence of society.
That’s why
a journalist group was set up
with diametrically
opposing points of view.
We have been working for more
than a year to investigate the events.
The reaction
to the deadly events of May the 2nd
is possibly the best example
of how Odessa fought back
against division and intimidation.
As regards to the key elements and
documents, we signed all of them,
all thirteen of the journalists
with different views.
We came to a single conclusion
that can be seen on paper.
Despite differing opinions,
the journalists have made much
more progress than the courts.
And we’ve just had
a court case adjourned again.
This is one of several
that has been adjourned so far.
And this is why the cases
against those charged
with causing the deaths on May
the 2nd 2014, is taking so long.
It has to work its way through
a very laborious court system.
Analysts reckon it could be years
before anyone is brought to justice.
Odessa knows it needs to ensure
that it is never this vulnerable again.
And that means tackling corruption
and much needed reforms.
That is where the region’s
new governor comes in.
Former Georgian president Mikheil
Saakashvili, a reform specialist,
is Odessa’s new governor,
but he can only do so much.
A governor does not have
a lot of opportunity
because it is not even
like a governor of state in the US,
or even not a governor
like in the Russian Federation,
because most economical tools
are in hands of Kiev government
or a mayor or a city council.
But what a governor can do
is fighting
the corruption on regional level.
Making Odessa more resilient
through economic reforms is the goal,
but they need to tackle first
an old system that is full of obstacles.
We don’t care to work
within a system that doesn’t work.
What people want to hear is that
just like Slovakia jammed 17% up
when they ran the reforms.
That’s what we want to do.
That’s what our ambition should be.
Odessa still needs reform,
including better infrastructure,
improved agriculture, better social
protection and less bureaucracy.
But what is clear
is that Odessa has managed
to avoid the same fate as Crimea.
Crimea was open to anyone.
It was possible for any person
in the world to come to Crimea,
Ukrainian Crimea,
and to have a good time there.
What we see today?
We see that Crimea is almost blocked,
it is isolated
and no one can actually go there.
Ukraine's future is being built
in places like Odessa,
but it’s also true
that change needs to be real
because the people
know the difference
between empty words
and real action.
If we feel that there is
at least less corruption in this area,
everyone would know that.
But if it will be only words,
only some declarations,
it would be very easy to know.
People are getting impatient,
but not...
In my mind not to the extent
for the new Maidan to be forging.
After all, a lot of people understand
we cannot rule through Maidans.
The country cannot be
a stable country and having a future
living from Maidan to another Maidan.
People are just not patient.
You know, people are expecting
this change to be faster and I tend to,
you know, to succumb
to this impatience myself as well.
But if the people
can bring some of the changes
the country so dearly needs,
Odessa could be the birthplace
of a newer, freer
and stronger Ukraine.
And it is something
that the people want soon.