ODESSA, Ukraine – Ukraine sent an elite national guard unit to its southern port of Odessa, desperate to halt a spread of the fighting between government troops and a pro-Russia militia in the east that killed combatants on both sides Monday.
The government in Kiev intensified its attempts to bring both regions back under its control but seemed particularly alarmed by the bloodshed in Odessa. It had been largely peaceful until Friday, when clashes killed 46 people, many of them in a government building set on fire.
The loss of Odessa – in addition to a swath of industrial eastern Ukraine – would be catastrophic for the interim government in Kiev, leaving the country cut off from the Black Sea. Ukraine already lost a significant part of its coastline in March, when its Crimean Peninsula was annexed by Russia.
Compared with eastern Ukraine, Odessa is a wealthy city with an educated and ethnically diverse population of more than 1 million.
“The people of Odessa are well-educated and understand perfectly well that Russia is sowing the seeds of civil war and destabilization in Ukraine,” said Vladimir Kureichik, a literature teacher who left Crimea after it became part of Russia.
The White House said it was “extremely concerned” by the violence in southern Ukraine.
