Battered by intense shelling, peppered with gunfire and then … everything goes quiet. Along Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea coast, Russian forces are playing a strange game, testing defenses, spilling blood and raising tensions but failing to drive home any significant gains.Battered by intense shelling, peppered with gunfire and then … everything goes quiet. Along Ukraine’s strategic Black Sea coast, Russian forces are playing a strange game, testing defenses, spilling blood and raising tensions but failing to drive home any significant gains.