Russian forces want to take Mykolaiv because it stands in their way. The Varvarivsky Bridge in the city is the only passage for miles across the wide mouth of the Southern Buh River. By seizing the bridge, Russian fighters can push along the Black Sea coast west to Odessa, the headquarters of the Ukrainian Navy and the country’s largest civilian port.

To get to the bridge, they have to go through the Ukrainian fighters who, so far, have not budged. And so the Russian troops bomb, randomly and indiscriminately, striking neighborhoods, hospitals and supermarkets, opting for terror in the absence of military gain. At least a dozen civilians were killed by airstrikes over the weekend, according to the local authorities.

Yet there is also a refusal to succumb. Trash is still being collected, and city workers have embarked on an aggressive tree-pruning campaign, though the shelling is knocking down some of those trees.

There is the family who closed down a high-end interior design business and now drives around the city all day delivering food to needy residents, pausing only on occasion to dash into a basement for cover. There is the group of local guys who banded together to try to fix a Russian tank damaged in the fighting so that Ukraine’s military might use it.