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If they can ship the food to Odessa (presumably by truck or train), it seems like they would be able to ship it to a port in a non-blockaded foreign country ins

by devit 4y ago

If they can ship the food to Odessa (presumably by truck or train), it seems like they would be able to ship it to a port in a non-blockaded foreign country instead (e.g. Turkey, Greece, Italy, Poland).

corrral 4y ago
It'd take a lot of trucks and train cars to move one ship's worth of grain. Consider that highways, train lines, and ports don't necessarily have a ton of extra capacity available, for reasons of economy, that upgrading those takes time, and can be hard to finance if the situation is perceived to be temporary (so, may take significant government intervention to make it happen). Plus, you go to all the effort and expense of doing that, then Russia hits a few important bridges on the Ukraine side of your routes, and now you're back to nearly-zero capacity.
- trhway 4y ago
  Russia has already struck the Zatoka bridge south/west of Odessa, the best/shortest route from Odessa to Danube river and Black Sea ports in Romania. Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. (correction thanks to the commenter below - gauge, not wheelbase) Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad, its ally in Syria. Russia runs very intensive propaganda campaign representing European help to Ukraine wrt. wheat export as basically Europe stealing the wheat. Its propaganda also celebrates the food prices rising in the "collective West" countries as supposed result of the sanctions, and Russia will do anything to stimulate the rise of the prices in order to foment public push against the sanctions.
  - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
    > Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad Well, no hunger for good people of Syria then
    - thghtihadanacct 4y ago
      Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
      - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        Make up your mind - it is either in Syria or ... where? 500kt is not a small amount
        ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        that question is for putin to answer – where did he take it?
        Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        to Syria if you have different info - please share
        alexvoda 4y ago
        On route. Lost during shipping.
    - trhway 4y ago
      >for good people yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
      - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed. Looks like win-win to me <skipping crap about food as a weapon>
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    > Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Ok top of that, there is a gauge change when crossing over from Ukraine to the west and the infrastructure towards the west is hardly at the level required. For example, train crossings from Poland to Germany are not all electrified, so you need another change of engine.
    - dreamcompiler 4y ago
      Side note: This gauge difference worked in Ukraine's favor in one respect. Russia's military logistics infrastructure is heavily train-based, but Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference. This meant they had to switch to trucks which are old and unreliable and they got bogged down in mud, which meant they had to stick to roads where they were easy for the Ukrainians to attack. And those transshipment points where the Russians had to unload all their cargo from trains and reload it onto trucks also became fat juicy targets. Yet another example where Russia didn't think carefully enough before invading.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        Ukranian and Russian railway gauge are the same, 1520mm. It is EU that is different with 1435mm.
        dreamcompiler 4y ago
        I read an article early in the war that specifically stated the opposite, but apparently it was wrong and now of course I can't find it. You're correct.
    - MikePlacid 4y ago
      dreamcompiler wrote: “Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference.” There is no gauge difference between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, even some (small) parts of Polish railways use Russian gauge - remnant of the times when Soviet raw materials were delivered in bulk to Polish metallurgic plants.
  - rok3 4y ago
    > It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Just a quick point of clarification for anyone trying to look this up. The correct term is "gauge" (distance between the rails) instead of "wheelbase" (distance between front and rear wheels). Most European countries use tracks with a gauge of 1,435mm but Ukraine uses 1,520mm.
greenglass 4y ago
Why would they be motivated to do that? If I were Ukraine, I would do all I could to exacerbate global food shortages. If I were the United States, I might consider how massive aid packages interact with various incentives along these lines. Supposedly the aid is help get around the sea blockade. Every cost is a negotiation.
- yucky 4y ago
  Quite the opposite. The best move for the US would be to let Ukraine fall, which would re-stabilize food and fuel prices.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    If the goal were to lower prices which I’m sure it’s not. Us oil production is only economical at 60-80$ a barrel
  - rebuilder 4y ago
    I really don’t think the USA can afford to let Ukraine fail. They are basically committed to destroying the Russian economy now, and having them lose the war in Ukraine is an important part in that. If Russia is able to defeat Ukraine, end the war and stabilise the situation, they will be in a better position to convince countries to work around the sanctions they are facing, which would amount to an end-run around the dominanc e of the US dollar.
    - yucky 4y ago
      So this is accurate in my opinion, but you're essentially saying the quiet part out loud. You're saying the war has nothing to do with saving Ukraine, but rather protecting the hegemony of the US dollar. I suspect if everybody understood that's what we're really concerned with, support for Ukraine would drop precipitously.
  - geoka9 4y ago
    Yes, give Russia another weapon (in addition to gas used to influence decision makers in much of Europe) to wield upon the world.
dragonwriter 4y ago
There is work on establishing export routes. But also, a lot of the food has been destroyed, a lot of the equipment has been destroyed in the chain of producing and delivering the food, and a lot of the people that work in that chain have been killed, displaced, or have had more pressing tasks than working in agriculture. Those problems aren't likely to be solved immediately even if new export routes are opened.

by devit 4y ago

corrral 4y ago

It'd take a lot of trucks and train cars to move one ship's worth of grain. Consider that highways, train lines, and ports don't necessarily have a ton of extra capacity available, for reasons of economy, that upgrading those takes time, and can be hard to finance if the situation is perceived to be temporary (so, may take significant government intervention to make it happen). Plus, you go to all the effort and expense of doing that, then Russia hits a few important bridges on the Ukraine side of your routes, and now you're back to nearly-zero capacity.

trhway 4y ago
Russia has already struck the Zatoka bridge south/west of Odessa, the best/shortest route from Odessa to Danube river and Black Sea ports in Romania. Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. (correction thanks to the commenter below - gauge, not wheelbase) Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad, its ally in Syria. Russia runs very intensive propaganda campaign representing European help to Ukraine wrt. wheat export as basically Europe stealing the wheat. Its propaganda also celebrates the food prices rising in the "collective West" countries as supposed result of the sanctions, and Russia will do anything to stimulate the rise of the prices in order to foment public push against the sanctions.
- Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
  > Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad Well, no hunger for good people of Syria then
  - thghtihadanacct 4y ago
    Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
    - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
      Make up your mind - it is either in Syria or ... where? 500kt is not a small amount
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        that question is for putin to answer – where did he take it?
        Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        to Syria if you have different info - please share
        alexvoda 4y ago
        On route. Lost during shipping.
  - trhway 4y ago
    >for good people yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
    - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
      Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed. Looks like win-win to me <skipping crap about food as a weapon>
- Xylakant 4y ago
  > Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Ok top of that, there is a gauge change when crossing over from Ukraine to the west and the infrastructure towards the west is hardly at the level required. For example, train crossings from Poland to Germany are not all electrified, so you need another change of engine.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    Side note: This gauge difference worked in Ukraine's favor in one respect. Russia's military logistics infrastructure is heavily train-based, but Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference. This meant they had to switch to trucks which are old and unreliable and they got bogged down in mud, which meant they had to stick to roads where they were easy for the Ukrainians to attack. And those transshipment points where the Russians had to unload all their cargo from trains and reload it onto trucks also became fat juicy targets. Yet another example where Russia didn't think carefully enough before invading.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Ukranian and Russian railway gauge are the same, 1520mm. It is EU that is different with 1435mm.
      - dreamcompiler 4y ago
        I read an article early in the war that specifically stated the opposite, but apparently it was wrong and now of course I can't find it. You're correct.
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    dreamcompiler wrote: “Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference.” There is no gauge difference between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, even some (small) parts of Polish railways use Russian gauge - remnant of the times when Soviet raw materials were delivered in bulk to Polish metallurgic plants.
- rok3 4y ago
  > It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Just a quick point of clarification for anyone trying to look this up. The correct term is "gauge" (distance between the rails) instead of "wheelbase" (distance between front and rear wheels). Most European countries use tracks with a gauge of 1,435mm but Ukraine uses 1,520mm.

greenglass 4y ago

Why would they be motivated to do that? If I were Ukraine, I would do all I could to exacerbate global food shortages. If I were the United States, I might consider how massive aid packages interact with various incentives along these lines. Supposedly the aid is help get around the sea blockade. Every cost is a negotiation.

yucky 4y ago
Quite the opposite. The best move for the US would be to let Ukraine fall, which would re-stabilize food and fuel prices.
- rdtwo 4y ago
  If the goal were to lower prices which I’m sure it’s not. Us oil production is only economical at 60-80$ a barrel
- rebuilder 4y ago
  I really don’t think the USA can afford to let Ukraine fail. They are basically committed to destroying the Russian economy now, and having them lose the war in Ukraine is an important part in that. If Russia is able to defeat Ukraine, end the war and stabilise the situation, they will be in a better position to convince countries to work around the sanctions they are facing, which would amount to an end-run around the dominanc e of the US dollar.
  - yucky 4y ago
    So this is accurate in my opinion, but you're essentially saying the quiet part out loud. You're saying the war has nothing to do with saving Ukraine, but rather protecting the hegemony of the US dollar. I suspect if everybody understood that's what we're really concerned with, support for Ukraine would drop precipitously.
- geoka9 4y ago
  Yes, give Russia another weapon (in addition to gas used to influence decision makers in much of Europe) to wield upon the world.

dragonwriter 4y ago

There is work on establishing export routes. But also, a lot of the food has been destroyed, a lot of the equipment has been destroyed in the chain of producing and delivering the food, and a lot of the people that work in that chain have been killed, displaced, or have had more pressing tasks than working in agriculture. Those problems aren't likely to be solved immediately even if new export routes are opened.