Foreign Affairs

Specter Of Famine Looms As Ukraine-Russia War Heats Up

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As the Russo-Ukrainian War escalates from a land conflict into a naval conflict, famine could strike regions that rely on food exports from both Russia and Ukraine.

Russia has recently begun attacking Ukrainian ports in retaliation for Ukraine’s strikes on Russian-operated shadow fleet merchant ships, resulting in a significant downturn in grain exports from the region. The developments are unfolding years after Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a peace deal in 2022 that some say was derailed by Western interests, Responsible Statecraft reported.

Ukraine’s wheat and corn exports fell 17% during the first full week of July as Russian attacks disrupted its Black Sea logistics, while the country’s monthly grain-shipping capacity has declined from roughly 6 million metric tons to 4 million metric tons, Reuters reported, citing the Ukrainian farmers union.

The Russian grain export forecast fell from 2.1 million tons in July 2025 to 1.5 million tons in July 2026, the Moscow Times reported, citing agricultural consultancy SovEcon.

Russia has struck port infrastructure, fuel-storage facilities and ships at Chornomorsk, one of Ukraine’s primary grain-export gateways, Reuters reported. Ukraine’s largest grain exporter, Kernel, halted operations there, while Maersk suspended service through the separate Chornomorsk Fishing Port, according to the outlet.

The combined exports from Russia and Ukraine made up nearly 30% of global wheat exports, with roughly 20% coming from Russia and 10% coming from Ukraine before the Russo-Ukrainian War began, Juergen Voegele, the former vice president of the World Bank, said in 2022.

Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecasting Russian exports of 47.5 million metric tons in the 2026-2027 trade year, more than 22% of projected global wheat exports.

Ukraine is the Black Sea region’s leading corn exporter and the fourth-largest worldwide, with the USDA forecasting 23 million metric tons in 2026-2027, behind only the United States, Brazil and Argentina.

“Alternative routes cannot fully replace the scale and efficiency of Black Sea shipping. Moving goods ​​over land is generally slower, more expensive, and less efficient,” a spokesperson from Action Against Hunger told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Those higher costs ultimately affect families that depend on affordable food imports. For humanitarian organizations, higher food prices and transportation costs mean reaching fewer people with the same funding.”

Russia and Ukraine supplied roughly 44% of Africa’s imported wheat by value, or about $5.1 billion worth, before the war began, according to a 2022 report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

“If disruptions in the Black Sea continue or intensify, the risk is that current market pressures could evolve into broader food security impacts,” Jennifer Weatherall, the senior technical advisor for cash, markets and food security at Catholic Relief Services, told the DCNF. “This would be especially concerning in places already affected by conflict or economic instability, where families have a limited ability to further absorb additional increases in food prices.”

“To prevent a broader humanitarian crisis, it helps to keep basic supply chains open and operating. Diplomatic efforts should prioritize protecting civilians and essential civilian infrastructure, including food production, water systems, energy grids, and medical centers,” Action Against Hunger told the DCNF. “Ensuring that farmers, truck drivers, and relief workers can safely do their jobs can help prevent humanitarian emergencies from worsening. Hunger is always a political and a financial choice; it’s predictable and preventable.”

At the beginning of the war, a United Nations-led “grain deal” was reached to prevent the disruption of these grain exports. The deal secured the safe passage of grain exports through the Black Sea in an initiative approved by the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Turkey.

The United Nations says the deal expired on July 17, 2023, after Russia declined to renew it. Ukraine created its own maritime corridor when the deal ended, PBS reported.

“The purpose of this Initiative is to facilitate the safe navigation for the export of grain and related foodstuffs and fertilizers, including ammonia from the Ports of Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny,” the text from the deal reads.

“Countries most at risk are those that have a high dependence on imported wheat and cereals combined with existing food insecurity, and ongoing crises such as conflict, economic issues, and climate shocks,” Weatherall told the DCNF. “These countries include Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan.”

Twenty-six countries receive more than half of their grain from Russia and Ukraine, according to a 2022 report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“This was a major issue in 2022-2023 and now recent escalations in the Black Sea have increased uncertainty around grain exports, and humanitarian actors continue to monitor the potential impact on food availability and prices in import-dependent countries,” Weatherall told the DCNF. “Ukraine remains a major supplier of wheat, maize, and sunflower oil to global markets, and disruptions to Black Sea exports could have significant implications for countries that rely heavily on imported cereals.”

The Russians were under great pressure from the “Global South,” a broad grouping of developing countries across Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Middle East, to keep these grain exports alive.

“When both Turkey and the United Nations brokered what was called at the time the grain deal that was aimed at preserving both Ukrainian and Russian ability to export agricultural products, wheat, other commodities, much of which goes to the Global South, there was a great deal of pressure on Russia at that time from its partners in the Global South not to do things that would seriously diminish exports that would in turn affect food supplies that they were very much dependent on,” the director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute, George Beebe, said during a press call on Tuesday. “And the Russians agreed. They caved into pressure; they agreed to this grain deal.”

These exports were already affected by the land war in Ukraine, but the new naval conflict complicates the picture even further.

The naval escalation began when Ukraine initiated a drone campaign attacking Russian shipping throughout the Black Sea. The ships hit by Ukraine were both Russian-flagged and flying the flags of other nations as part of Russia’s “shadow fleet.”

“Things changed, I think, after the Ukrainians not only intensified their attacks on Russian merchant shipping in the Black Sea, but also in the Sea of Azov,” Beebe said during the press call. “And as a result of those increased Ukrainian attacks on Russian merchant shipping, the Russians retaliated and essentially now have shut down the Ukrainian port of Odesa, which is the primary export facility for Ukraine to send out agricultural exports into the world, but also the primary port facility through which Ukraine gets aid from abroad, including military aid. And so the Russians have, I think, as a result of what the Ukrainians have done in the Sea of Azov, is they’ve turned to their Global South partners and said. ‘Well, this wasn’t us. The Ukrainians attempted to shut down our shipping. We are retaliating. If you don’t like what we’ve done to shut down grain shipments out of Ukraine, talk to the Ukrainians’.”

These strikes range from attacks on oil tankers to other ships with unspecified cargo payloads. The Ukrainian military has publicized this naval campaign by posting footage of what these strikes look like from the drone operator’s point of view.

Official Ukrainian 414th Drone Brigade footage shows attacks on two Russian fuel tankers in the Sea of Azov in a video posted on X.

Although this specific example shows strikes on oil tankers, strikes of this nature contribute to reduced shipping in the region.

One unconfirmed report from a pro-Ukraine account on X states that Ukraine’s drone campaign struck 159 Russian vessels, including 117 in the Sea of Azov and 42 in the Black Sea, between July 6 and July 17. The post states that on July 17, “9 dry cargo ships, 1 oil tanker, 1 gas carrier and 1 tug” were hit.

Russia’s retaliation on Ukraine for this naval campaign carried a similar bite. The Russian military began striking Ukrainian ports throughout the Black Sea shortly after Ukraine’s naval drone campaign reached its peak.

“Every half a year or so, Ukraine does something big, explosive, that is often hyped in the West as a potential game changer,” Mark Episkopos, a research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s Eurasia Program, said during the press call. “Whether it’s the attacks on the Kerch Strait bridge over Crimea, or the 2023 counteroffensive. Or the 2022 counteroffensive in Kharkiv. There’s always this tendency to take something that Ukraine is doing and look at it as a game changer. And now, most recently, the supposed game changer is these strikes against targets deep inside Russia, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which supposedly will put pressure on the Kremlin to end the war on Ukraine’s terms.”

“Every time we miss, I think, an important part of the puzzle, which is that Ukraine can do something, but this is not a linear experience. Russia can do things back to Ukraine,” Episkopos said. “Russia has tools of its own to escalate. And the strikes on Odesa, the Russian efforts to disrupt shipping, are one such tool that Russia has and is using quite effectively to deprive Ukraine of an important revenue stream. So this is a brutal back and forth.”

Unconfirmed videos posted on X reportedly depict Russia’s sustained attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure, including Kh-59/69 cruise missiles, Oniks supersonic cruise missiles, Banderol jet drones, Geran-3/4 jet drones and Geran-2/Gerbera drones.

One video allegedly shows a Russian cruise missile flying through the air on the way to its final target; however, it remains hard to confirm these reports as any identifying information that could determine when or where the footage was captured is usually removed for operational security reasons.

These attacks have also seen the Russian military roll out a whole new class of weapon: jet-powered suicide drones, Reuters reported. The launch of these new drones serves as yet another rung on the escalation ladder for the Russians.

The Ukrainian military is struggling to keep up with these new jet-powered drones, which can reach speeds of up to 311 miles per hour, according to Reuters. The Ukrainian military is utilizing improved Skyfall interceptors, which can fly at nearly 230 miles per hour, Business Insider reported.

While footage of these new and improved interceptors attacking jet-powered drones is currently not public, older videos posted on X depict what these interceptors look like in action as they attack propeller-driven drones.

This new naval campaign also took an unexpected turn in July when Ukraine decided to target an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, effectively making Ukraine a combatant in the Iran War. The attack killed one Iranian sailor and wounded another.

“Sergey Lavrov expressed sincere condolences over the death of an Iranian sailor in a July 25 Ukrainian drone attack on the Iranian-owned dry cargo vessel Ana, which had departed Astrakhan carrying civilian cargo,” according to the official Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Telegram.

Beebe speculated the rapid escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war into a full-blown naval conflict could have dire consequences for people in the global south.

“It could have a significant effect on global grain markets and food, and it’s not just grain exports,” Beebe said during the press briefing. “We’ve also got a problem with fertilizers. That, of course, is affected by what’s been going on in the Persian Gulf. Fertilizers and oil markets are quite interrelated. And so the combination of an energy crisis, a fertilizer shortage, and grain export shortages that we’re talking about out of Russia and Ukraine could produce some real turbulence for much of the world. I don’t think it’s going to be immediate. This is the kind of thing where there’s a delay between the actions on the ground and the impact on markets downstream. But I do think this is a serious threat over time.”

The Iran War is also raising the price of fertilizer. E.J. Antoni, chief economist at The Heritage Foundation, previously told the DCNF that if the price of fertilizer rises too high, developing nations will no longer be able to continue farming, raising the price of food exponentially.

“Other places around the world, like Sub-Saharan Africa or many parts of Southeast Asia, and people are simply not going to be able to afford those higher food prices, and they will literally have to do without,” Antoni previously told the DCNF. “And in the case of the necessity, like food, doing without means death.”

One expert warned the DCNF that several other factors are contributing to food insecurity.

“Our greater concern is not only the disruption to grain exports, but that this is happening in the context of multiple overlapping crises already impacting food insecurity in the world’s most vulnerable regions. The prospect of a ‘super’ El Niño occurring alongside disruptions to trade that flows through major shipping channels like the Strait of Hormuz has raised significant concerns for global food security,” Weatherall told the DCNF. “At the same time, disruption of regular trade and transportation through channels like the Strait of Hormuz threatens global supplies of fuel, gas, and fertilizers. Higher energy and fertilizer costs increase the cost of food production and transport, while interruptions to fertilizer availability can reduce crop yields in future planting seasons, further reducing food availability.”