Ukraine dampens hopes of grain exports from Odessa port soon again

Russia bombed the port of Odessa with cruise missiles on Saturday. The attack came just one day after the two countries signed an agreement with the United Nations to resume grain exports through ports on the Black Sea. 

According to the Ukrainians, two cruise missiles were brought down by their air defenses, but the other two are said to have hit “port infrastructure”. A transformer station was hit.

A video on Twitter shows that one of the rockets lands just a few hundred meters away from the large grain silos. The port city of Odessa is one of the most important export ports of Ukraine on the Black Sea, especially for grain exports.

The Russian war against Ukraine has blocked exports from all Ukrainian ports. There are up to 25 million tons of grain in warehouses in Ukraine waiting to be shipped to the world market. In addition, the Western sanctions against Russia affect the trade in Russian products, although those Western sanctions have not been imposed on foodstuffs.

The Ukrainian government says President Vladimir Putin's missile attack on the port of Odessa is "spitting in the face" of the United Nations and Turkey, with which Ukraine and Russia closed their grain export deal last Friday. UN chief Antonio Guterres and the European Union's foreign minister Josep Borrell strongly condemned the attack on Saturday. 

Ukraine calls on the United Nations and Turkey to ensure that Russia adheres to the agreements. In the Istanbul deal, it has been agreed that Russia and Ukraine will allow grain exports through. The two countries together are responsible for about 30 percent of the world's wheat exports.

The Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure said that the damage caused will not affect the resumption of agricultural exports. 

A Ukrainian official pointed out last weekend that many people mistakenly believe that grain exports could resume soon after the ports were unblocked. That certainly won't happen, Alex Lissitsa, CEO of the IMC company, warned in an interview with AgroPortal.ua.

He points out that the sea area must be demined and that damaged infrastructure must be repaired. This applies not only to storage and ports, but also to the supply routes. This is a matter of at least a few weeks to a few months.