Nellie and Dan take advantage of the sunny spell to stroll along the famous promenade in Constanta, Romania, but find it hard to stop their thoughts. “My kids are in Germany, they don’t live in Romania,” Nelli explains. “They call us five times a day to see if everything is okay.” From this Romanian port city, we are following the situation in Ukraine very closely. Odessa is only 300 kilometers away, and a major port on the Black Sea is a new worry in the war in Ukraine.
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The Romanians are watching the situation closely as Russian tanks are closing in on Odessa. If the city falls, the Russians will be at their border very quickly. Since this weekend, Romanians have been robbing banks to take euros and dollars. Local authorities in Bucharest have asked residents to clean out their basements or find other shelters near their homes.
“I can’t leave my city, my country and go somewhere else, it’s hard, very hard.”
Dan, a resident of Constanta
on Franceinfo
Nellie and Dan tried to help the refugees themselves, they don’t see themselves leaving their city. “We are also worried, we are very excited,” Dan confirms. “We have no guarantees that Putin will stop. It is true that we have a sense of security near the NATO base, but you cannot help thinking about a world war.” III. ” Twenty kilometers from Constanta, the Romanian military base Mihail-Kogelniceanu was placed at the disposal of NATO. Several thousand soldiers of the alliance, including 500 French, were stationed here.
Mircea watches the cargo ships in the distance. Thirty ships line up at the port entrance. All his life, Mircea sailed on these bulk carriers, so he has an eye: “Maybe there are some among them that were supposed to go to Odessa, because the port is closed.” He says he’s pretty quiet, but the atmosphere around him has changed a bit. “At the moment there are no problems, but people are starting to ask questions and wonder what will happen next week or in a month. We have to be careful,” Mircea insists.
Mircea does not believe in a Russian invasion of Romania, protected by NATO forces a few kilometers from his home. “I hope they don’t go crazy to cross the border,” he says. But just in case, he knows where to hide: “I live in the block, and we have shelter from air attacks. If necessary, we can go there.” Mircea thinks about a dozen of his friends in the ports of Odessa and Mariupol, about whom he has no news.
From the port of Constanta, Romanians are carefully studying the situation in Odessa – a report by Matilda Dehimi
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