In reality, Russia has been affected by Western sanctions since the 2014 Crimean war. It responded with massive investment and restructured its agriculture to gain self-sufficiency and to diversify its exports’ channels. In May 2022, the exclusion of Russia from the international financial system represents the main obstacle to its exportations. The situation is different in Ukraine because the infrastructures are destroyed all along the chain, and Kiev has to divert part of its production for internal needs to face a reduced harvest this year. The sector also suffers from a shortage of manpower because of the large mobilisation, lack of fertilisers that were coming from Belarus or Russia, of petrol to fill tractors’ tanks, and construction material to rebuild farms.
Famine
The West is well aware of the risk of starvation in already poor countries. It also fears that shortages will destabilise entire fragile regions and cause mass migration to the West. But it also offers another opportunity to underly the viciousness of Russia’s policy, at a time when Western public opinion is growingly aware of the complexity of this war. Experts in economy have already point their fingers to the role of traders and speculation, of producers well converted to free market who store cereals until demand is high enough. Experts and NGOs mention the consequences on the food circuit of conditions imposed by IMF and other international donors for helping countries to “reform” their agriculture. In Ukraine, the free selling of farm land, especially to foreigners, has been resisted by citizens and parliament since the early 90thies. The most recent law, voted on 31 March 2020 is still ambiguous. As was the declaration of president Zelensky who, during the national forum “Ukraine 30. Land”, saluted the text lifting the moratorium on sale of land as a return to every citizen of the “constitutional right to own land”.
Unblock the blockade
Today, all attention is focused on the blockade of Black Sea ports by Russian forces, whose consequences have been aptly integrated into President Zelensky’s communication war. For the West, it offers a good opportunity to launch a new offensive in direction of the countries unaffected by previous pressures to turn their back to cynical Russia and join the Western sanctions. Many continue to see the risk of famine in their country as a consequence of Western sanctions against Russia, and fear they might be repeated against them at any moment. The Kremlin kept its narrative, and ambiguity, through 2 messages in a day: on 25 May, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko declared to TASS news agency “We have repeatedly spoken out on this subject that solving the food problem requires a comprehensive approach,” requiring the “removal of sanctions” on Russian exports and financial restrictions; then spokesman Dmitri Peskov hinted at the Russian position concerning demands by international organisations and NGOs to open humanitarian corridors in the Black Sea allowing Ukraine to resume shipments.
Technicalities
All those political statements pay scant attention to legal, financial and technical key aspects. For instance:
- The waters around the ports have been mined by the Ukrainians, faced with immediate threat of naval invasion by superior forces. But they did not properly map the mines, and many mobile mines have been washed away by the currents.
- Most of the ports’ infrastructures, roads and trains connections included, have been destroyed. Even if they are repaired, the need skilled technical staff and solid financial backing by the private companies involved in the different sectors. All are disorganised, many are bankrupted.
- The circulation in the Black Sea depends of 1/ the rules imposed by the 1936 Treaty of Montreux that unpredictable president Erdogan can twist according to his perceived interests of the moment; 2/ the presence of the Russian Black Sea fleet based in Sevastopol since 1783; 3/ the need to protect the ships that might take away wheat from Ukrainian ports; 4/ the reluctance of insurance companies to cover ships and their contents in those risky conditions.
- The organisation of a “humanitarian corridor” is the equivalent on sea of the imposition of “no fly zone”, with all the difficulties and dangers involved in their implementation.
Back to arms
Of course, it is possible to redirect more Ukrainian exports through Black Sea ports in Bulgaria and Romania. But cereals have first to be transported there, by rails or roads, at great cost and in limited quantity. It will also take time to build infrastructure in those non-Ukrainian ports, with the possibility that those 2 countries might seize the opportunity to modernise their own infrastructure, thanks to unconditioned and generous EU funds. Already now, the Roumanian port of Constanza is in booming thanks to Western efforts to circumvent Russian blockades and deliver arms to Ukraine. Ports are fierce competitors, and ulterior motives can be detected in proposals by solid allies of Ukraine such as Poland and Lituania to export through their territories and their ports.
If all that looks grim, it is less so than recent calls to get rid of the Black Sea Russian navy by military means. American experts and officials have lately declared they are putting hope on harpoon anti-ship missiles, which Denmark and other nations are now sending to Ukraine. They believe that as few as 12 of these missiles could destroy Russia’s sea blockade. Even the mere delivery of those missiles to Ukraine could be sufficiently dangerous to Russia’s fleet to cause Moscow to withdraw its ships, they say. It would also risk the military direct confrontation between Russia and the West that both have been keen to prevent up to now.