Even though Ukraine is among the world’s top suppliers of seed oils, wheat, and fertilizer, Russia’s war in Ukraine has shut down Ukrainian Black Sea ports, devastating Ukrainian export potential. In a normal year, Ukraine would generate 45 percent of its general income from the agricultural sector, much of which would be exported abroad.
August 1 marked Ukraine’s first Black Sea cargo ship departure since mid-February 2022, facilitated through a Turkish-brokered, United Nations-backed grain deal between Russia and Ukraine. It created collectively secured export routes through the Black Sea from three Ukrainian ports: Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. On Monday, a single cargo ship departed from the Port of Odesa with Ukrainian agricultural products which serves as a guinea pig for evaluating the export deal’s feasibility and vitality. Through the deal, the United Nations (UN) reportedly aims to facilitate transportation of five million tonnes of grain from Ukraine each month. Ukraine likely has prepared roughly 20 million tonnes of grain for shipment. These exports could rake in an estimated $1 billion dollars for the Ukrainian economy and subdue increasingly urgent warnings over global food insecurity that could impact hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
However, realizing the UN’s aspiration is contingent on Russia’s good-faith commitment to the grain deal and on lessened Russian military aggression in the Black Sea. But there is good reason be skeptical, especially as Russian military attacks continue against Ukrainian ports and within the region. One day after signing, Russia exploited the deal by launching a military attack against the Port of Odesa—one of three ports protected under the agreement—under the auspices of destroying Ukrainian military equipment. Russia incurred no penalties, and the deal remains in effect.
The status quo is demonstrating that Russia can “abide” by
the safe-export framework while not only waging war against Ukraine broadly but
against Ukrainian export infrastructure, specifically. Attacks, like the
Russian missile launches last Saturday, are obvious threats to Ukrainian
vessels’ safety and freedom of navigation by foreign vessels.
We should expect more—not less—Russian militarization of the
Black Sea, which will necessarily thwart freedom of navigation and safety of
maritime transportation, after this deal. Russia has continued military strikes
against civilian maritime infrastructure. Further, this deal offers neither incentive
to stop nor punishment for destruction of other maritime infrastructure or
vessels.
Russia cannot be trusted to maintain Black Sea security, given its history of capricious regional destabilization for political purposes. Long before the 2022 invasion, Russia had been attempting to assert regional dominance. For example, in 2018, Russia raised the temperature by seizing multiple Ukrainian vessels. In July 2021, Russia threatened to block off parts of the Black Sea to foreign vessels for six months. A few months later, Russia executed a war game with its Black Sea fleet vessel Moskva—which would sink during its 2022 military campaign—and increased regional volatility by harassing British and Dutch warships in the Black Sea.
Russia’s military presence in the Black Sea, which is only increasing, incurs civilian casualties and threatens the maritime shipping industry. Currently, about a half dozen Russian military vessels float off the Ukrainian coastline. According to the Ukrainian military just last week, Russia launched airborne attacks on Odesa and Mykolaiv, another Ukrainian port city, from its Black Sea fleet. The Russian military has also destroyed civilian vessels in the region, including a gas tanker in early July and a cargo ship in March, among other cases.
The international community should carefully watch how the Kremlin might abuse this deal and use it as both a launching pad for further militarization and destabilization in the Black Sea and for propagandizing purposes. Russian spokespersons could appeal to the legitimacy of Russia’s “efforts” to resolve the international grain and shipping crisis through this deal. Russia maintains its anti-Ukrainian talking point of “liberation” and intends to “liberate” Odesa and Mykolaiv, another Ukrainian port city. Presently, the Kremlin maintains control over the Kherson port has commandeered the Ukrainian port of Mariupol and announced it is resuming full-time operations under Russian occupation. The world must watch closely that Russia does not further militarize and exploit this Black Sea shipping crisis for its own political objectives.
As the world sits on the precipice of global famine, and as
Ukrainian ports remain under Russian occupation or damage from Russian military
strikes, Russia continues to play political games and deny responsibility for
the shipping crisis it created. While the world can be hopeful about this
recently-established deal, pragmatic skepticism must remain top of mind for the
brokering parties. Russia must not be given permission to dictate rules of
engagement for Black Sea shipping, and penalties should be applied for military
aggression against maritime infrastructure and vessels.
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