The Daily - Russia’s Newest Target: The Global Food Supply

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it put the global food supply at risk — until the two countries struck an unusual deal to keep shipments flowing. Last week, that deal fell apart.Marc Santora, who has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, explains what the collapse of the agreement means for the war and why its impact will be felt by tens of millions of people across the world.Guest: Marc Santora, a Ukraine correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: After Russia pulled out of the agreement allowing ships to carry grain past its Black Sea blockade, Ukraine accused Moscow of aiming strikes at food export infrastructure.Russia has hit the port city of Odesa repeatedly since withdrawing from the grain deal.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Matina Steves-Gridnev, in for Sabrina, and this is The Daily. Russia's invasion of Ukraine put the global food supply at risk, until the two countries struck an unusual deal to keep food shipments flowing. Last week, that deal fell apart. Today, my colleague Mark Santora on what the collapse of the deal means for the war and why its impact will be felt by tens of millions of people across the world.

It's Tuesday, July 25th. Mark, tell me about this deal that fell apart last week and why it's so significant. Very simply, Matina, it's about feeding the world. Between the two of them, Russia and Ukraine provide just a ton of the world's food supply. Russia and Ukraine produce about 30 percent of the world's wheat and barley. 20 percent of corn comes from Russia and the Ukraine. 80 percent of sunflower oil, palm oil, which is... Ukraine is one of the world's leading suppliers of grain, barley, rapeseed oil,

sunflower seeds, and a host of other products. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has upended the flow of food around the world. But the moment Russia launched its full-scale invasion, it also instituted a naval blockade on all of Ukraine's Black Sea ports. They laid sea mines, trapping the ships that were meant to deliver millions of tons of grain to the global market. Around 25 million tons of grain are stuck in the country. Some of it is stored in silos like these in the port of Odessa, waiting for export. So all of that just went off the market overnight. The food supply for millions of Ukrainians and millions more around the world has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military.

But for Russia's part, they're the global leader in exporting fertilizer around the world. The war starts and the exporting of that fertilizer becomes incredibly more difficult for Russia because of the sanctions that are put on them. So you have a situation where crops are stuck in Ukraine, and the stuff that helps those crops grow is harder to move out of Russia, and food prices soar. So when it became clear that this war was not going to be a quick war, but a lasting war,

international pressure began to build to try and find some sort of solution. Right. And that solution is an agreement to restart food shipments. So how does that come together? So in April of last year, Ukraine and Russia agreed to begin to talk about this growing problem. They won't do it with each other, but they agree to start discussing ways to possibly find a solution. And they do that in Turkey. And Turkey's central role in all this makes sense just even if you look at the map. Turkey controls the only way in and out of the Black Sea where all these ships from Ukraine would have to go through, right? That's right, Matina. They are the ones who determine what ships can pass through, civilian cargo vessels and others. And so in order for any ship to get safe passage, the first step is for Turkey to grant passage into the Black Sea.

And here you have the situation where the Turkish leader, President Erdogan, who has relationships both with Moscow and with Ukraine, with the West and with the East, tries to position himself as sort of the mediator here, the person who can find a solution to one of the deepest and most complex global problems that arose from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Well, I remember covering these talks in Istanbul and just felt like a bit of a mission impossible to get Russia to back off and agree to anything. But I remember thinking maybe Erdogan, maybe the Turkish president would be able to pull it off. Yeah, amazingly, he does. And I think, you know, when the parties were actually finally brought together to sign this agreement,

You know, when the parties were actually finally brought together to sign this agreement, the depth of the division and the challenges in making it happen were evident in the signing ceremony itself. Today, there is a beacon on the Black Sea. A beacon of hope. A beacon of possibility. A beacon of relief. They had a grand table laid out with flowers and all the usual statecraft that goes into the signing of a treaty where you'd have two parties come together and sign a document. In this case, the Russians came out first onto the stage, signed it, and then left. The Ukrainians separately came out, and they signed, and they left.

Never at any point did Russia and Ukraine make a deal together. Rather, what they had was a deal through Turkey and the United Nations to get the grain moving again. The signature ceremony has ended. Thank you. Right. I remember watching that moment, and it was just so fragile, so delicate. And you could really see that in the careful choreography of making sure that the two officials would never actually be on stage at the same time. Dan, you have to remember the emotions, too, here. I mean, you know, the atrocities in Bucha had come to light.

You had Russia raining missiles down on towns and cities across the country, occupying something like 25% of the land. It's incredible that they were able to find some way forward on this. So let's walk through exactly what was in that deal. What did each side agree to? they were able to find some way forward on this. So let's walk through exactly what was in that deal. What did each side agree to? So, Matina, the deal basically has two parts. First, you have the UN promising that it's going to help Russia get better and cheaper terms to let it export its own fertilizer.

Essentially, it's the UN saying that it's going to help ease sanctions put on Moscow for launching its invasion of Ukraine. In exchange, Russia says it'll grant safe passage for cargo ships through the Black Sea, helping them navigate a maze of maritime mines and also pass its own warships to bring the grain out of Ukraine. And then, to be sure the ships aren't smuggling goods or ammunition or other things, there will be an inspection center set up in Istanbul with people from both Ukraine and Russia who can inspect the ships as they leave. So Russian officials and Ukrainian officials are going to be working together in this small space in Istanbul to get

the grain ships moving again. Yeah, I mean, even though the deal itself isn't between Russia and Ukraine, you have a situation where you have the two parties basically operating in this little joint center to try and get this grain onto the market again. And the place we're going to see if this deal is going to work and the most important place for it to succeed is in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa. And why is Odessa so important? So Odessa has economic, militarily strategic, and symbolic importance. First of all, it's the largest port in Ukraine, and it's sort of a remarkable sight to see. Cranes rising high in the sky, dozens and dozens of them, train lines leading into this

sprawling shipyard and port. There are warehouses, there's fuel depots. Basically, it's not only a vital part of the economy in Odessa, but for Ukraine more broadly. So when Putin announced his invasion, there was a feeling that the Kremlin thought it could take Odessa without having to destroy Odessa. And in the first weeks of the war, I remember one of the few places that was somewhat unscathed by Russian missiles and bombs was Odessa. The first bombing wasn't recorded until I think it was three or four weeks into the war itself, and that was just on the outskirts of Odessa. But the city still suffered. With the

naval blockade, the port was completely shut down. The economic engine of the city stops running. Russian warships menace off the coast. There's a threat of an amphibious invasion. People go to the beach not for leisure, but to pack sand in the sandbags. And so a city known for its celebration of life and its sense of humor and its raucousness and its joie de vivre has gone silent to a large degree. So set against that tense backdrop, So set against that tense backdrop, the first ship is loaded with grain in a port in Odessa. And on August 1st of last year, it sets out to sea. It's really this sort of dramatic scene all across the city.

As the captain pulls out, he gives the traditional three blasts of the horn. And people across the city, they stop and people have tears in their eyes. It's like, okay, maybe the port might start to come back to life. And so does life come back to Odessa and the port? Well, obviously it's nothing like it is before the war, but ships are coming into Odessa again. They are being loaded with grain. They are making their way out to the global market. Workers are filling those ships, and captains are sailing them out to sea.

Every few months, the deal basically had to be renewed, and so there would be these periods where the amount of ships allowed in would slow, and there would be questions of if it would be renewed and tensions around it. But really, for the most part, it held. And over the course of the entire initiative, something like 33 million tons of grain was able to make its way from the Black Sea to the global market. So for a while there, it looks like this global food crisis, this meltdown has kind of been averted, right?

Yeah, remarkably, the deal holds. There are problems and hiccups, but grain is moving. Until it isn't, and the deal falls apart. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Mark, what happens? Why does the deal fall apart so suddenly? The agreement, which assures Ukrainian grain can be transported through the Black Sea, is due to expire on July 17.

The groundbreaking deal has been renewed three times since its first signing, but it may not be renewed again. Well, I think we started to see the tension building as the renewal date started to approach. One of the last two ships carrying grain through the Black Sea corridor anchored at Istanbul Saturday. By the end of June, the last ship approved by Russia to be part of this deal came into the ports in Odessa. Russian President Vladimir Putin

is threatening to walk away from the Black Sea grain deal unless some sanctions are lifted. And then as the date of the renewal drew closer, we saw Putin get more fiery in his rhetoric and start to make more demands and say essentially enough is enough. And then, last week, Monday,

Moscow says it won't extend the agreement. The Kremlin says they're done. That night, bombs start falling on the port in Odessa. The next day, you have the Kremlin say that any ship that is seen sailing towards Ukraine will be considered hostile and could be blown out of the water. A second night of what Ukraine describes as hellish aerial assaults by Russia on the city of Odessa. And then the next night, Odessa is bombed again. And the next night.

These were targeted attacks in exactly the place where grain exports are to take place. And this has now become probably the most intense bombardment sustained by Odessa throughout the course of the 16-month war. I was there for a few nights of it, and the attack would come in waves. It would be attack drones. It would be missiles fired on a ballistic trajectory to give them this incredible speed. Russia was also firing anti-ship missiles, and these missiles, they skim along the surface of the sea, making them remarkably hard to shoot down. And Odessa, spared early in the war, now finds itself squarely in Moscow's crosshairs.

What a devastating, remarkable 180 in basically less than a week, from deal to no deal, from relative peace to all-out bombardment. Why do we think Russia is doing this? Well, there is first the Kremlin's stated reason, which is they say they're not getting what they want out of this deal. The sanctions are not being eased in a way that they find sufficient for their participation. Of course, they add stuff to what they say they want, and the Ukrainians see it as just nothing but pure blackmail. But second, whatever the Kremlin says, it's also important

to keep in mind just what a different place we're in now than when this deal was first negotiated and agreed to back in August of last summer. Russia's in a much weakened state, and so, quite frankly, is President Putin, who just faced an uprising within his own ranks of his military. And so, in this weakened position, one of the levers that Moscow still has at its disposal is the economic pressure it's putting on the country. grain is an essential part of the Ukrainian economy, the shutting off of that has a real impact. And then thirdly, globally, Russia is showing that it can still wreak havoc on a very important global market, in this case, the food market. And again, the Ukrainians say it's Russia using food as a weapon, trying to hold the world hostage to its demands, saying, we will not allow this food to go out unless you give us what we want. The U.S., Europeans agree with that assessment that what Russia is doing here is just essentially blackmail.

So essentially, this would be a way to sort of stick it to the international community for the Russians. Yeah, absolutely. And perhaps their hope is that they could then, by pressuring the international community, hope the international community then puts pressure on Ukraine to look for some sort of negotiated settlement, which, quite frankly, does not seem to be on the table at the moment in any fashion. table at the moment in any fashion. So given all that, where do we stand a week since the deal collapsed? So again, remember, the Kremlin said it will deem any ship trying to travel to Ukraine to export grain hostile, meaning they reserve the right to shoot it out of the water. And then the Ukrainians said they will view any

ship moving out of either Russian-occupied ports in southern Ukraine or Russian ports on the Black Sea itself as potentially hostile, setting up this incredibly tense environment on the Black Sea itself. And so you have surging grain prices, and you have 29 ships that are basically just waiting now out at sea, hoping maybe that they could get to a port in Ukraine and load up with grain. Mark, is there any credible way out of this? Well, Matina, short of Russia rejoining the initiative, which, given the events of the past week, Moscow's given no indication they intend to do, the options are pretty risky.

What the Ukrainians say they would like to see happen is for the world to basically call Moscow's bluff, for ships to sail along a corridor, load up with grain, take that grain back out into the global market, and basically dare Russia to shoot an internationally flagged civilian ship. But even, you know, last week, the U.S. intelligence community was warning that Moscow and its Navy were already mining this route in a way that they could then maybe try and blame Ukraine should one of these ships blow up. So it's fraught with risk. And this plan to have any chance of actually becoming a reality, even the Ukrainians say they need something essential,

which is Turkey, to signal that they will protect these ships moving through this corridor. And Turkey taking that step would be a real break with Russia, right? Yeah. I mean, no matter how personally upset Erdogan might be with Putin for pulling out, to take such a step would basically side with Ukraine. And he has very carefully positioned himself throughout the war as the broker between the two nations rather than taking one side explicitly. Even if Turkey were to give this signal, you still have other added complications, particularly private shipping companies and insurers who might be loathe to send a ship through mine-infested waters with the threat of Russian warships shooting at them. Yeah, that all sounds wildly unlikely to work. Yeah, but again, you know, I think we've seen over the course of the 16 months of this war that the future is also fraught. So I think, you know, at the moment, everyone's just watching and waiting to see what happens next. And of course, the longer we wait for this situation to play out, the closer we get to another food crisis because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Absolutely. I mean, there's already a million tons of grain waiting in ports in Odessa at the moment. And the more grain that piles up there, the less food there is on plates on people's tables across the world. Mark, thank you. Thank you, Matina. On Monday, Russia expanded its assault on Ukraine's grain exports, using drones to attack a port along the Danube River, about 70 miles from the Black Sea.

The strike signaled that Russia is now seeking to destroy every available way for Ukraine to ship its grain to the rest of the world. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. In Israel on Monday, the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu followed through with its plan to limit the power of the country's Supreme Court, despite protests from tens of thousands of Israelis and the explicit opposition of the Biden administration. the explicit opposition of the Biden administration. Busha! Busha! Busha!

The plan, adopted during a dramatic vote by Israel's parliament, would prevent the court from overturning many decisions made by Netanyahu and his ministers, shielding his government from traditional judicial oversight. The battle over the judiciary has become one of the biggest political showdowns in modern Israeli history, pitting secular Israelis, who opposed the plan, against religious nationalists who supported it.

Dozens of major businesses shut down on Monday. Israel's largest labor union said it may call for a national strike, and more than 10,000 military reservists are threatening to resign from duty. On Monday night, Netanyahu seemed to acknowledge the protesters during a televised speech, offering to postpone a plan for even bigger changes to the country's court system. Today's episode was produced by Will Reed, Claire Tenesketter, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by MJ Davis-Lynn with help from Lisa Chow. Contains original music by Marion Lozano, Alicia Baetube, and Dan Powell,

and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Matina Steves-Gradeneff. See you tomorrow.