While Russia has blocked exports of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea exports, it’s navy continues to lose ports.
Russia has also repeatedly bombed the port of Odesa, destroying a grain elevator owned by Viterra and holding 60 tonnes of grain. It contrasts with the two world wars in Europe that avoided bombing food-supply chains.
Russia has been warning the world that any ship approaching a Ukrainian port "will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo."
This obvious threat to sink commercial shipping appears to be an attempt to prevent ships from taking on Ukrainian grain.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked Turkey to join him in a new arrangement to protect grain ships without Russia's involvement. Turkey has yet to respond.
Turkey controls the straits through which all ships use to pass to and from the Black Sea. It closed the straits to military ships the day Russia invaded the Ukraine.
The threat to sink commercial shipping marks an escalation that can only be carried out under a state of declared war, said Tanya Grodzinski, a naval historian at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont.
That's something Russian President Vladimir Putin has been anxious to avoid by calling it a "special military operation."
Russia's famous Black Sea fleet, already hurt by the humiliating loss of its flagship Moscow, faces an uncertain future and the possible loss of both its bases and its naval supremacy.
And in the north three narrow straits separate Denmark from Sweden; the widest, between two Danish islands, is a mere 16 kilometres across and now they are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Russia can still use its ports, including St. Petersburg, for commercial shipping.
It has shifted its military ships to ports in the Arctic and Pacific.
