Sergey Rylov heard the thud as a Russian missile was shot down on its way toward Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, a town on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine where he’s lived since fleeing the fighting in the east a month ago.

His immediate thought was that he’d be keeping his daughter home from kindergarten that day. His second? "The war’s coming here too.”

The attempted missile strike last Friday was still a rarity compared to the now-familiar routine elsewhere in Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. But until recently, the southwestern-most corner of Ukraine that curls between Moldova and Romania had been largely untouched by the war, providing a transit corridor for cargoes no longer able to use sea ports that once handled 70% of Ukraine’s trade.