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| The Ukraine Grain Deal. 22 July 2022 - 17 July 2023. |
A short life,
with its flaws, but the only diplomatic light in the darkness of Russia's
invasion.
It had allowed
Ukraine to export its grain to the world through the Black Sea.
A third less
than normal, but still 33 million tonnes. However, in recent months, its health
had deteriorated.
MALE FERTILITY | SEXUAL WEAKNESS | ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION
Russia was
accused of slowing the route with naval blockades and long inspections, and the
deal finally succumbed.
Last week saw
Moscow's official withdrawal. Russia then launched a wave of missile strikes on
ports it once promised to leave alone.
One site
destroyed was a grain terminal owned by one of Ukraine's biggest producers,
Kernel. Officials say more than 60,000 tonnes of grain has been destroyed in
the past week.
"We stopped
our exports for the first two to three months of the war," explains Yevhen
Osypov, Kernel's CEO.
MALE FERTILITY | SEXUAL WEAKNESS | ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION
"The prices
of oil and grain went up by 50%, and you can see the same happening again
now."
While global
grain supplies seem to be stable for now, global markets saw the price of grain
rise by 8% within a day of Russia pulling out - the highest daily rise since
its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin now says his country "is capable of replacing the
Ukrainian grain both on a commercial and free-of-charge basis, especially as we
expect another record harvest this year".
MALE FERTILITY | SEXUAL WEAKNESS | ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION
In an article
published on the Kremlin's website ahead of this week's Russia-Africa summit,
President Putin wrote that "Russia will continue its energetic efforts to
provide supplies of grain, food products, fertilisers and other goods to
Africa".
Both Russia and
Ukraine are among the world's leading grain exporters.
At the weekend Russian missile strikes severely damaged Odesa's Transfiguration Cathedral, in the city's Unesco world heritage-listed historic centre
The Kremlin had
earlier agreed not to target port infrastructure in three locations in the
region, but that diplomatic shield is no more.
With damaged
ports, no agreed corridor through the Black Sea and Russia controlling most of
the coastline, Mr Osypov believes Ukraine's grain export capacity will drop by
a further 50%.
"It's a
huge challenge for our farmers because they'll have to sell their products 20%
below cost," says Mr Osypov, who predicts there will be fewer people in
the future working less land.
The death of the
grain deal extends well beyond Odesa's ports. The city's mayor Gennady
Trukhanov thinks Moscow just wants to show nothing will be exported without
them, and he's right.
"The most
terrible thing is that in order to achieve their goal, they've attacked
innocent people," he says.
You're left in
little doubt over the scale of Ukrainian grain production when standing 40
metres high on top of a silo in the central Poltava region.
The plant we're
in can hold 120,000 tonnes. It's around a third full, and while Ukraine is
unable to export through the Black Sea, it will keep filling up.
The site is
surrounded by an endless agricultural expanse.
This is a
country which can't suddenly stop producing grain. It has to go somewhere - or
at least that's the hope.
"We feel
there is a need for us to harvest as much grain as possible," says Yulia,
a lab technician at Kernel, as she pours samples into a pipe.
Before the birth
of the grain deal, tens of millions of people from some of the world's poorest
countries were at risk of starvation because of Ukraine's inability to export
it.
Twelve months
later, that risk has returned.
"The
Russians probably don't understand what hunger is," says Yulia.
"People are starving, there's a large supply, but they can't get it for no
reason."
Lab technicians
like Yulia test Ukraine's grain once it has been harvested
Moscow had
threatened to pull out before, mainly saying there were too many restrictions
on its own agricultural goods.
It also wants a
major bank let into a global payment system, restrictions lifted on Russian
fertiliser companies, and for its ships to get full access to insurance and
foreign ports.
President Putin
has now turned those complaints into demands. However, if they were to be met,
that would require a relaxation of western sanctions, which is hard to imagine.
Last July, the
Kremlin had seemed keen to be "part of the solution" when it came to
the food crisis that it has directly caused by invading Ukraine.
Battlefield
frustrations seem to have changed that stance.
Despite the lack
of a pulse, Turkey - one of the main brokers of the grain deal along with the
United Nations - is still hopeful it can be resuscitated.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres (left) and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan helped broker the grain deal in 2022
So, assuming the
initiative is indeed dead, is there an heir apparent? An alternative solution
for Ukraine to export?
Road and rail
has been used through neighbouring countries like Romania and Poland, but there
have been times when Ukrainian grain has flooded their markets and driven down
prices, to the annoyance of farmers.
The River Danube
has also been developed as a route through central Europe, with two million
tonnes of grain making it through in the last 12 months, compared with 600,000
the year before.
However both
scratch the surface of what Ukraine hopes to shift, and are much more expensive
logistically.
During her recent
visit I asked the head of US Aid, Samantha Power, whether Ukraine's status as
"Europe's breadbasket" was a thing of the past.
She'd just
announced a package worth almost a billion dollars for Ukraine, which included
agricultural modernisation.
"We're
doing what we can, but there's no substitute for peace," was her reply.
Additional
reporting by Aakriti Thapar, Anastasiia Levchenko and Anna Tsyba
By James Waterhouse || BBC Ukraine Correspondent, Odesa
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