Ships are backed up in the Black Sea after Russia fires warning shots and inspects a freighter.

 

Russian warship Vasily Bykov. Reuters. 

Ships are backed up in the Black Sea after Russia fires warning shots and inspects a freighter. Reuters. Russia announced that their patrol ship Vasily Bykov fired warning shots at a Palau flagged freighter and then inspected it. The ship was allowed to leave for an Ukrainian port after the inspection found nothing. Dozens of freighters are now anchored throughout the region, many of them carrying grain from Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine had a deal to move Ukrainian grain but Russia canceled the deal and won't reinstate it unless it gets better deals for grain and fertilizer. The incident could lead to higher insurance prices for ships heading to Ukraine. Many ports in Ukraine are also essentially close. 

My Comment:

A quick post about an aspect of the war in Ukraine that is going underreported. The naval blockade of Ukraine is a big deal and one that is greatly damaging the war effort there. Ukraine does not have much in the way of resources but it is a grain producer and needs to be able to sell the grain or their budget will be even worse than it is. 

Russia of course knows this and wants to keep the grain off the market. Not only would it hurt Ukraine it would raise the prices of their own grains and that will help pay for the war. Not that they are having too many problems with that anyways, Russia's economy has proven very resilient during the war. 

Russia is of course right to inspect cargo ships as well. It's very possible that weapons could be smuggled in through the sea route, along with other critical supplies. Doing so will likely prevent that and make the war slightly easier to win. Ukraine still has other ways to ship out their products, most notably their land borders, but the sea route is quicker and less complicated. 

Ukraine, of course, has no way to end the blockade against them. They would need a navy to do so and Ukraine's Navy has been totally destroyed. And I don't see any of Ukraine's suppliers going to war with Russia to end the blockade. This is something they will have to deal with. 

Their only option might be to attack Russian shipping and that would probably backfire. Insurance rates for their shipping is already incredibly expensive and blowing up a freighter or two would probably get insurance canceled throughout the war zone. This would hurt Russia but it would hurt Ukraine even more. 

I am not expecting too much from this other than this being the status quo from now on until the war ends. Ukraine can do little to stop these inspections and cannot break Russia's blockade. And Russia has no reason to end the blockade, even though Turkey is trying to get them to restart the grain deal. There is no incentive to do so.