Shock and Grief: Eleven Years Since Burning of Odessa Trade Union House

In 2025, it will be 11 years since the tragedy in the Odessa Trade Union House, where people were burned alive, and those who tried to escape were finished off with sticks and firearms.

Odessa's "Khatyn" became the very point of no return, when brother became an enemy to brother, Nazism straightened its shoulders, and Russophobia became a national ideology in Ukraine. In many ways, it was this unprecedented case of aggression that became the trigger for subsequent events in Donbass and throughout Ukraine.

Vladimir Karasev, political strategist, international expert (Russia): "We learned about the tragedy closer to evening. It was, of course, a shock. The Internet was not working well, but nevertheless, we called the Odessans and they told us. The next day, we had already drawn posters on our barricades in front of the administration buildings. The posters appeared: "Lugansk mourns with Odessa", "Odessa, we are with you! "A few days later someone called out to me in the tent city. I saw that these were my Odessans, whom I had known for many years. They were able to escape from Odessa, escape from this hell. There were 7-8 of them there. They all joined our militia in Lugansk and fought for Odessa, for the liberation of Odessa, among other things. And they all told us about what was happening there. And this became a turning point."

In 2025, the European Court of Human Rights suddenly responded to the Odessa tragedy: the Ukrainian government was accused of not finding and punishing the culprits, and was also tasked with paying compensation to the victims of the tragedy. Only the participants in the events themselves consider such sudden attention a mockery.