The city center in Odessa is a ghost town. Barricaded with sandbags, this is a city ready for battle.

The bombing hasn’t started, but Ukraine’s third largest city on the southern coast appears as if it’s already under bombardment.

For days, Odessa’s residents have been warned of the possibility of a Russian amphibious landing. Young residents now know it is their turn to fight. Some civilians have already taken up arms.

Scarred from a war for the last generation, locals are on edge as Russian forces encroach on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. They say this is just like an episode that causes their grandparents to burst into nervous tears when they recall the horror of 1941 during the assault by Nazi Germany.

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A food hall has been hurriedly converted into a well-oiled machine designed to sustain the city’s youth with medicine and other essential supplies. The city’s nearby Opera House is fortified – just as it was more than eight decades ago.

One man, Nick, tells me he couldn’t help but weep after seeing a photograph of the building barricaded.

“It is impossible to imagine that this picture in reality, it is only our memory,” he said.

But while it can feel like everyone is staying to fight, trains are filling with people – young mothers and their children – desperate to escape.

They watched the chilling march of the Russians into the town of Kherson, about 125 miles (200 km) west of Odessa — a town where locals never imagined they would have Russian troops walking around the streets.