That leaves customers, including hungry people in poor countries, short of what they need.
At any one time, more than 100 grain ships are lined up at near the Bosporus Strait that connects the Black Sea to Istanbul, Turkey, waiting as long as a month for the inspections.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure last month blamed the crush of ship traffic on the “deliberate sabotage by the Russian side of vessel inspections in the Bosporus.”
In recent weeks, shipments from Ukraine’s three operating Black Sea ports, among them Odesa, have fallen to a four-month low. The shipments are monitored and recorded by the United Nations under the Black Sea Grain Initiative program.
The reduction in exports from Ukraine is often cited as one of the key reasons for current food price inflation across the entire world.
