How Do the Latest Black Sea Attacks Affect Global Food Security?
Commentary Economics
Attacks on agricultural infrastructure have been a defining feature of Russia’s war in Ukraine since 2022, causing record-level impacts on global food and fertilizer markets. However, recent attacks on shipping and export infrastructure in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov represent a heretofore unseen escalation in agriculture-related attacks by each country. Russia’s attacks on cargo ships and export infrastructure have largely suspended vessel traffic through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, previously responsible for approximately 90 percent of Ukraine’s agricultural exports. Ukraine’s attacks on major Russian ports in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have damaged grain export infrastructure and grain-carrying ships, leading Russia to suspend exports from its highest-capacity grain export terminals. These mutual attacks have made a significant proportion of the world’s wheat trade inaccessible to buyers and threaten global fertilizer trade—while reductions in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and Panama Canal further complicate agriculture trade routes.
Q1: What is the nature of recent attacks?
A1: Since the start of its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has attacked Ukraine’s grain and oilseed production, transportation, processing, and export infrastructure; obstructed access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, including by attacking ships carrying Ukrainian grains, forcing Ukraine to secure alternative export routes like the Danube River, which subsequently became a target for Russian attacks; targeted and killed Ukrainian farmers, exporters, and agribusiness leaders; and stole and re-sold Ukrainian grains. Despite Russia’s deliberate efforts to undermine Ukraine’s agricultural economy, Ukraine has remained one of the world’s top agricultural exporters, though export volumes remain below prewar levels. Most of the damage to Black Sea agricultural infrastructure has been inflicted by Russia on Ukraine, and until recently, Russia’s production and export levels remained relatively unaffected by the war.
Recent attacks in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov have changed these dynamics. This summer, Russia has increased the intensity of attacks on grain-carrying ships in and near Ukraine’s ports, and targeted all of Ukraine’s means of grain transport, including by sea, river, and land. Concurrently, Ukraine has escalated attacks on Russia’s major Black Sea ports—notably Novorossiysk, responsible for 40 percent of Russian grain exports. Ukraine’s attacks there—part of a larger assault on Russia’s energy and military infrastructure—included Russia’s agricultural export infrastructure, including the first confirmed Ukrainian assaults on ships carrying Russian grain. As a result, traffic has significantly slowed through both Russia and Ukraine’s major grain-exporting ports simultaneously.
