As Ukrainians cheer the destruction of Wildberries warehouses in Russia, Moscow’s armed forces are unleashing a far more consequential campaign against Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, which has rendered the country de-facto landlocked.
On June 25, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky announced the beginning of a 40-day “influence” campaign, aimed at pressuring Russia into ending its military operation. During the campaign, Ukraine shifted the focus of its long-range strikes against Russia to civilian sites, hitting around a dozen warehouses belonging to Wildberries – dubbed ‘the Amazon of Russia’.
Simultaneously, Ukraine stepped up its attacks on Russia-bound shipping in the Black Sea and beyond, with Zelensky’s secret police, the SBU, attacking an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian sea in late July. The attack killed an Iranian sailor, and Kiev apologized after Tehran threatened retaliation.
The campaign reached a grim nadir on its 40th day, when Ukrainian drones killed at least seven people at a beach on the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik. Less than a day later, five people were killed and ten others wounded in an overnight Ukrainian drone strike in Moscow Region.
Zelensky’s campaign gave the Ukrainian leader what he wanted: a winning message to take to Washington. After begging US President Donald Trump for permission to build Patriot interceptors in Ukraine, Zelensky told a group of US senators last week that Ukraine is making “good progress against Russia” and “winning the war now.”
The Western media has boosted Zelensky’s line, with the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNN, and others all claiming that Kiev is now “turning the tide” against Moscow.
However, the smoke rising from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports tells a different story.
De-portification
From the port of Izmail on the Danube estuary, to Nikolaev just 50 kilometers from Russian lines, Ukraine’s Black Sea ports are vital to the country’s survival. Roughly 80-90% of Ukraine’s exports by weight leave via the Black Sea, and an untold quantity of Western weapons and ammunition arrive in return. As the Western press lauded Zelensky’s tactic of intensifying long-range strikes this summer, Russia began dismantling the country’s infrastructure.
Russian drones and missiles have hit the Black Sea ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk, Yuzhni, and Nikolaev on multiple occasions since early July. The Danube ports of Izmail, Reni, and Kilia have also come under attack. As of August 3, Ukraine’s transport ministry had recorded 67 strikes on seaport infrastructure and 57 on vessels.
By late July, around 90% of shipping operators had suspended port calls in Ukraine, according to Reuters. Just as the threat of Iranian strikes shut the Strait of Hormuz in March, Russia’s missile and drone attacks have effectively closed Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. By denying Ukraine sea access, Russia has achieved three key goals:
Freezing Ukraine’s exports
Agricultural products account for 60% of Ukraine’s total exports, and 90% of this figure leaves Ukraine through just three ports: Odessa, Chornomorsk, and Yuzhni. By striking just these three ports, Russia has – at least temporarily – frozen 55% of Ukraine’s total exports, worth around $27 billion per year.
“No ships have entered Ukrainian ports since approximately July 20,” Dmitry Barinov, president of the Association of Ukrainian Ports, told Switzerland’s RSI broadcaster on August 2. “We are an exporting country. It is crucial for us to be able to reopen our ports.”
For Ukraine’s farmers and exporters, the port closure comes at a critical time. The wheat harvest is almost over, and the sunflower harvest has yet to begin. Between Odessa and Nikolaev, RSI visited warehouses, sheds, and silos overflowing with grain, stuck in storage with no way of reaching global markets. Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Taras Visotsky told Reuters that alternate routes exist – road, rail, and by river to the Romanian port of Constanta – but combined, these routes can handle only half of the Black Sea ports’ monthly capacity.
“The situation is exceptionally complicated. In certain aspects, it is even more difficult than in March-April 2022,” the minister said. According to Visotsky, Ukraine's agricultural sector may lose between $1.5 billion and $3 billion by the end of the year.
Stopping the arms flow
With exports shut off, the Russian military has focused its strikes on Ukraine’s most precious imports: arms and ammunition. Between August 3 and 4, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its missile and drone forces struck 13 ships carrying “military cargo,” in Odessa, Chornomorsk, Yuzhni, Nikolaev, and in the Black Sea. Three additional ships carrying unspecified cargo were also hit, as was a container terminal holding military equipment and a warehouse containing medium-range FP-2 kamikaze drones in Chornomorsk, according to multiple statements from the ministry.
The Ukrainian government has never admitted to receiving military cargo by sea, with Kiev and its NATO backers continuing to insist that weapons, equipment, and vehicles arrive in Ukraine by road and rail. However, given the preponderance of videos on social media showing secondary explosions at warehouses in Odessa after Russian strikes, it is highly likely that the weapons there arrived via the Black Sea.
Stretching Ukraine’s air defenses
Russia’s port campaign has forced Zelensky to make a difficult choice: to stand any chance of stopping Russia’s missiles and reopening the ports, he’ll need to redeploy Ukraine’s limited number of air defense systems, namely the US-made Patriot, US-Norwegian NASAMS, and German-made IRIS-T batteries.
However, every missile battery repositioned along the Black Sea coast is a missile battery not defending the front line, or more crucially as winter approaches, inland power plants and fuel depots. The Russian Air Force has apparently taken notice of Ukraine’s air defense shortage, with Russian Su-34 fighter-bombers now launching glide bombs from within 7 km of the front line near Donetsk. Previously, Russian bombers launched their payload more than 40 km behind the front, due to the threat of Ukrainian air defense missiles.
Speaking after Russia launched nearly 30 ballistic missiles and 185 drones at targets around Kiev on August 1, Zelensky admitted that “only one ballistic missile was intercepted, simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems.”
Future supplies of interceptor missiles for Ukraine are uncertain. The US, Israel, and Washington’s Gulf allies burned through unprecedented numbers of the latest PAC-3 Patriot interceptors during the US-Israeli war on Iran, with the US alone firing 943 in the first four days of the conflict, according to a Congressional study. The US military has fewer than 1,000 PAC-3 interceptors remaining, and with Lockheed Martin capable of producing only 52 per month, Washington is unlikely to share its dwindling stockpile with Kiev, especially with Trump threatening a new round of “decapitation” strikes on Iran.
Ukraine may be able to secure older PAC-2 interceptors, after the US Army awarded Raytheon a $441.6 million contract for the missiles in July. However, these Cold War-era interceptors are ineffective against Russia’s ballistic missiles, Ukrainian media reported last year.
Who’s really winning?
Zelensky’s 40-day campaign of long-range strikes won him cheers from NATO leaders, bargaining power with Trump, and headlines in the compliant Western press. However, he’s lost Ukraine’s coastline, and with it, his ability to export produce and import arms. With winter drawing near, Ukraine’s troop concentrations, weapons plants, and critical infrastructure are more vulnerable than ever to Russian missiles, drones, and bombs.
Whatever thrill Ukraine’s legion of online cheerleaders feel as they watch videos of burning Wildberries warehouses may prove short-lived.