Russia and Ukraine attack ports, choking off grain and oilseed exports

Shipping safety in the Black Sea turns on whether attacks on shipping ease.

A food corridor would let ships move. India’s proposals also raise the possibility of non-attack arrangements around grain and energy exports. That makes the bargain harder: a corridor plan depends on reducing attacks on ports and shipping, while Russia and Ukraine have attacked one another’s ports.

India’s proposal starts with shipping security, not with wheat prices. India’s proposals for a ceasefire revolve around the safety of commercial shipping in the Black Sea and the flow of grain and energy supplies, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Tuesday, according to a Tuesday account from theprint.in. In another quoted formulation, India has been engaging both sides on grain and energy exports and on “non-attack possibilities.”

India also has a balance-sheet reason to care about who can load cargo. In the 2025-26 marketing year, India imported 1.46 million tonnes of sunflower oil from Russia and 443,000 tonnes from Ukraine, according to the Indian Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA), in a Tuesday account from Al Jazeera. That gives India a direct food-oil exposure alongside its diplomacy.

The route is hard to reopen because the ports themselves are part of the fight. Russia has intensified strikes on Ukraine’s Odesa ports, which normally handle about 90 percent of its grain shipments, while Ukraine has hit Russian grain terminals, according to a Tuesday account from www.aljazeera.com. Safe-passage terms alone would not reduce attacks on the ports.

The earlier model worked, then broke. The United Nations- and Turkiye-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative allowed nearly 33 million tonnes of food to leave three Ukrainian ports from July 2022 before Russia withdrew a year later, according to a Tuesday account from www.aljazeera.com. The same account also said Russia walked away from the last grain deal in 2023.

A bargain around non-attack could still reopen the route if it gives both sides enough assurance that loading grain will not hand the other side an easy target.

Skepticism has a named operational reason. Hess said earlier attempts towards a standalone corridor failed “because Russia kept attacking Ukrainian ports”, and that shipping recovered only when Ukraine used naval drones to push Russia’s fleet away, according to a Tuesday account from www.aljazeera.com. In that version, bargaining followed battlefield distance; it did not create it.

Importers Have Little Control

Ukraine’s farm sector faces a problem if output cannot leave. Maksym Hopka, an analyst at the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, estimated that Ukraine’s agricultural output totaled about 3.7 million metric tons in July, of which about 2.7 million metric tons comprised grain, www.dw.com reported in August. Hopka also calculated that exports of agricultural produce would drop by about 9 million metric tons between August and October, and that losses could amount to about $1.9 billion.

Russian port operators face a different strain. The flow of cargo traffic through Russia’s southern ports has nearly come to a halt amid deteriorating security in the Azov and Black Sea basin, while Moscow has refused requests for financial assistance, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SZRU) reported, according to a Monday account from united24media.com. The agency estimates that compensating port operators for labor costs alone would require between $78.4 million and $95 million annually from Russia’s federal budget.

Importers are the outside players with little control over the attacks. Russia and Ukraine have attacked one another’s ports this year, choking off grain and oilseed exports that feed import-dependent countries in Africa and South Asia and leaving India short of sunflower oil, according to a Tuesday account from www.aljazeera.com. That puts pressure on India’s sunflower-oil buyers as well as other importers.

The talks also sit inside a wider negotiation over the war. Trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States began in the United Arab Emirates to explore a peaceful resolution to a conflict that has disrupted global food and energy supplies, according to a Tuesday account from www.newindianexpress.com. The disruption puts pressure on import-dependent countries.

With no scheduled decision named in the public reports, the practical test is blunt: continued attacks and closed capacity support the security reading; fewer attacks and reopened capacity would make India’s Black Sea proposal look workable.