Travelling by marshrutka (minibus) from Odessa to Mykolaiv in June 2024 was a rather normal experience. Aside from a police checkpoint along the way, there was to all appearances little out of the ordinary. When I had been in Odessa two years previously, only a few months after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the situation had been quite different. Mykolaiv was at that time a city close to the frontline. Eastern districts of Mykolaiv region were under Russian occupation, as was the nearby city of Kherson. As a result of damage to a water pipeline, Mykolaiv was reliant on water from the river Bug which was not suitable for drinking or cooking. Much of the population had fled. Volunteers were bringing drinking water to Mykolaiv from Odessa every day.
Mykolaiv nearly fell into Russian hands in the early days of the invasion. As Russian forces poured out of Crimea, inadequately prepared Ukrainian defences enabled them quickly to reach Kherson, and by the second day Russian troops were battling their way into Mykolaiv as well. There remain many questions about the poor initial performance of Ukrainian forces in the south of the country, which enabled the Russians to occupy so much territory so rapidly. One of the most important is why a key bridge out of Crimea was not destroyed? The Russians, not expecting strong Ukrainian resistance, had planned quickly to sweep across the south, and to reach Odessa and link up with Russian-occupied Transnistria, in Moldova, in just a few days. But despite repeated Russian assaults on Mykolaiv in the first two weeks of the invasion, the city’s defenders held firm and drove the Russians back.
The determined and effective leadership of General Dmytro Marchenko in organising the defence was no doubt crucial. But the resilience of civilians who piled tires in the streets and prepared Molotov cocktails was also important. As so often in war, the combination of a capable and charismatic commander and high morale among soldiers and civilians can make all the difference. Two weeks after the invaders had entered the town, the governor of Mykolaiv region, Vitaly Kim, announced that the Russians had been driven back 15-20 kilometres from the city.
On 29 March, a Russian missile struck the regional administration building in the centre of the city, killing and injuring dozens of people. The wrecked building now has a gaping whole in its façade. As in many towns in Ukraine now, there is a display of destroyed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles. In Mykolaiv, they are placed along the road leading up to the regional administration building, a testament to the fact that despite the Russian attempt to terrorise the city into submission, Mykolaiv had not yielded.
Another crucial battle took place in and around the small town of Voznesensk, north-west of Mykolaiv. The Russians’ rapid advance entailed military units bypassing towns, leaving others to try to capture them, and moving on to the next target. Thus a Russian force had pressed on to Voznesensk, a key objective, as there was a bridge over the Bug. If the Russians had captured Voznesensk, they could have closed off the whole south of the country, and the road to Odessa would have been open to them. Regular Ukrainian troops were joined by territorial defence forces, many of them ordinary local men who picked up a gun and headed off to face the Russian army. Local businesses were tasked by the town mayor with digging up the shores of the Mervovid river, a tributary of the Bug that flowed through the town, to prevent Russian vehicles fording it. Other businesses used their vehicles to block streets. Military engineers blew up the bridge. The defenders lacked tanks, but they made good use of artillery and US-supplied shoulder-launched Javelin missiles to drive back the Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers. As in Mykolaiv, the strength of Ukrainian resistance surprised the Russians. As they fled, they left behind numerous dead, as well as tanks and armoured personnel carriers, several of which were salvaged by the Ukrainians. The battle for Voznesensk was an inspiring victory for Ukraine, particularly given the spirited involvement of local people who joined the fight for their town.
While the Russians had been driven back from Mykolaiv, they were not far away, and Mykolaiv continued to be menaced. A local government employee told me that eastern districts of the city continued to face artillery fire and suffered considerable damage. The situation changed for Mykolaiv when, in November 2022, under pressure from relentless Ukrainian attacks on their supply chains, the Russians withdrew from the western side of the Dnieper river. To the exuberant joy of its inhabitants, Kherson was liberated, as was almost the entirety of Mykolaiv region. While nowhere in Ukraine is safe from Russian missiles, the Russian withdrawal relieved the pressure on Mykolaiv, which was now no longer in range of Russian artillery.
Kherson was not so lucky. Before their departure, the Russians destroyed much of the critical infrastructure, water, heating, electricity. And the city, now finding itself on the frontline, faced Russian artillery attacks. Much of the population left. The local government employee in Mykolaiv told me that while the city’s population had almost recovered to its pre-war level, much of that was due to the arrival of people displaced from Kherson rather than the return of the original inhabitants.
Mykolaiv has been badly bruised, but it remains an attractive city, very much alive when I visited, its cafes and restaurants open and with plenty of customers. The water supply remained a problem. While there had been an improvement, and the water was reckoned to be fine for washing, it was still not fit for drinking or cooking. I noticed a chemically smell while I took my showers. In March 2022, President Zelensky named Mykolaiv a “hero city of Ukraine” in recognition of its resistance to Russia’s attacks.
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