A human chain has formed on this Odessa beach swept by an icy wind.
About thirty men are busy shoveling the fine sand into white canvas bags, then passing these bags from arm to arm to the trailer of a truck parked at the Odessa Yacht Club.
Pleasure boats in dry dock evoke the happy days of sunny outings on the Black Sea.
But on this Thursday, March 10, it is the war that occupies all minds.
These thousands of sandbags will barricade downtown Odessa, which is calmly preparing for a Russian assault.
Volunteers prepare sandbags near the Yacht Club.
Several beaches near the city have been mined, according to the mayor, who fears a maritime assault by Russian forces.
© Mehdi Chebil, France 24
On the beach, Roman Brig catches his breath between two shovelfuls, while scanning the sea horizon.
The Russian warships are too far away to be seen, but their arrival is only a matter of time, he said.
"It's just common sense. Their boats won't approach until the Russian ground forces have taken Mykolaiv (lock city 130 km to the east) and they are at the gates of the city. I think that fighters have already infiltrated Odessa, and that they too will show up at that time," the computer engineer told France 24.
"So we have to be ready to fight on three fronts at the same time."
Roman Brig (right) volunteered to help build the defenses of Odessa.
© Mehdi Chebil, France 24
The 45-year-old volunteer has already brought his family to safety in Romania.
He has no military experience but wants to make himself useful in any way to defend his city.
"If the Russians think we are going to welcome them with roses, they are going to be in for a big surprise. We have seen the heroic resistance of cities like Kharkiv, it is a real source of inspiration for us."
Odessa, founded at the end of the 18th century by the Russian Empress Catherine II, who is still largely Russian-speaking, clearly does not wish to return to Moscow.
Entrenched camp
From the Yacht Club, the cranes of the port of Odessa are visible a few kilometers further north.
It is impossible to approach this strategic infrastructure, which has been shut down since the start of the conflict.
The area of the hypercenter of Odessa, adjacent to the port, was barricaded and prohibited to traffic.
A good portion of the sandbags were used in this area.
Images circulating on social networks have shown the statue of the Duke of Richelieu, a French nobleman who became governor of Odessa after being driven out by the 1789 revolution, covered by dozens of canvas bags.
Volunteers place sandbags around one of Odesa's landmarks, the monument to Duke of Richelieu, to protect it from potential Russian bombardment.
📸: Odesa City Council pic.twitter.com/UJm30huTu3
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) March 9, 2022
Apart from this hypercentre transformed into an entrenched camp, the city seems much less prepared for a siege.
Unlike Kiev, there is no tight network of checkpoints with armed men.
Several bus lines are still operating, supermarkets are fairly well stocked and it is relatively easy to find cafes open.
"It was the army that decided to put in place this defense device to protect the port because we feared an attack by Russian paratroopers", explains Oleg Bryndak, the deputy mayor of Odessa, who now wears a jacket. military khaki with crests in the colors of Ukraine.
"For the town hall, it's not just the war. We must continue to manage waste, ensure that pensions are paid, ensure that hospitals continue to operate normally. It is important that life does not doesn't stop at Odessa," added Natalia Maltseva, a spokeswoman for the municipality.
Several signs and street signs in Odessa have been concealed to complicate any Russian incursion.
© Mehdi Chebil, France 24
The underworld joins the sacred union
As elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russian aggression has sparked a real sacred union in the public space.
The pro-Russian minority, which took to the streets in 2014, is keeping a low profile.
The mayor of Odessa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has established himself as a figurehead of the resistance, with numerous media interventions.
During an interview with France 24, the city councilor, who always travels with a weapon, thus declared that he wanted to "stay until the end" to defend his city.
An ultra-patriotic positioning that leaves many of its constituents wary.
The most timorous describe Gennadiy Trukhanov as "controversial", some speak purely and simply of "gangster".
Former Soviet officer, head of a private security company in the 1990s, involved in questionable real estate transactions worth several million euros according to the Panama Papers and the Paradise Papers... The course of the mayor of Odessa ticks all the boxes boxes of the underworld, according to its detractors.
The city councilor is still under investigation for corruption.
"Gennadiy Trukhanov has a lot of links with the Russian mafia, which is also very linked to the FSB. And now he's telling Putin to fuck off... I don't know if he's really going to stay until the end of the day. I think the Odessa mafia is mostly waiting to see who will win," Oleg Mykhailnik, anti-corruption activist and coordinator of several liberal opposition parties, told France 24.
Oleg Mykhailnik with his Kalashnikov assault rifle, in the theater bar where his unit of volunteers gathers.
The anti-corruption activist survived a shooting attack in 2018, which he attributes to killers hired by the mayor of Odessa.
© Mehdi Chebil, France 24
The activist notes that several notoriously corrupt local figures, including a former local police chief and a former prosecutor from the Odessa region, have also regained their virginity by displaying martial positions against the Russian invader.
The former prosecutor, Oleg Zhuchenko, even went so far as to publicly give the amount of his bail of 2.6 million hryvnias (about 80,000 euros) to the Ukrainian army...
The question of the sincerity of these sudden bursts of patriotism is secondary for Oleg Mykhailnik.
Even if the mayor of Odessa did an about-face, the activist is convinced that the population would remain loyal to Kiev and fight the Russian invasion.
"The attack has united Ukraine like never before," said the activist from his HQ, a former bar-theater converted into a logistics base.
"Everyone around me is asking for weapons, even the old ones!"
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