Ochakiv

Ochakiv, also known as Ochakov and in antiquity as Alektor, is a small city in Mykolaiv Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast, in southern Ukraine, and the seat of the Ochakiv urban hromada. It stands at the mouth of the Dnieper on the banks of the Dnieper-Bug Estuary, where only 3.6 kilometres separate the Cape of Ochakiv on the northern bank from the Kinburn Spit on the southern bank, so that the Ochakiv and Kinburn fortresses controlled the entrance to the Dnieper and the Bug. The land was inhabited by Thracians and Scythians, Greek colonists founded a commercial colony called Alektor there in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, and it became a Roman colony in the 1st century BC. For many years the city fortress served as the capital of the Ottoman province of Özu (Silistria). Its population was estimated at 13,663 in 2022, and of about 14,000 people who lived there before the war only half remained.