Alexandra Roumiantseva is sunbathing on a beach on the outskirts of Sevastopol and is trying to block from her mind the news of the Russian assault on Ukraine when, suddenly, a Russian fighter plane splits the sky. “I can’t say that we are totally relaxed,” admits this 31-year-old woman, head of a charitable fund, who arrived from Saint Petersburg with her husband and two young sons. “If we feel that things are going badly, we go back”. Like her, thousands of Russians spend their holidays in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, annexed in 2014 by Moscow and rear base of the Russian army on the offensive in Ukraine.
While teenagers jumping off rocks into the sea and bare-chested travelers with beer in hand and grilling over open fires lend an air of summer normality to this vacation spot, the reality is that the front isn’t that far away. 300 or 400 km north of Sevastopol, fighting is a daily reality. And this port city is home to the Russian Black Sea Fleet whose ships, deployed at sea, fire almost every day on Ukrainian territory. Civilian air links to Crimea have also been suspended since the end of February, due to clashes nearby.
On the other side of the border, it is difficult for Ukrainians to consider such a beach holiday. During the night of Monday to Tuesday, the seaside resort of Zatoka, near Odessa, was bombed. If no death is to be deplored, the material damage is very important.