The vessel, carrying more than 400 containers and travelling from the Israeli port of Haifa to Romania, listed and sank after explosions rocked it. Crew members, other ships and a French surveillance plane recorded the daytime assault.
Before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, about a third of the world's grain exports passed through the Black Sea, and Ukraine provided a tenth of global wheat exports and 15 percent of corn, according to Al Jazeera. Its customers include Middle East and North African nations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv's forces conducted "no operations in this part of the sea, and this latest tragedy involving civilian vessels is another part of Russia's effort to make the western Black Sea completely unfit for navigation."
The European Union's delegation to Kyiv said in August that Russia is "systematically strangling Ukraine's ability to feed the world," adding that by targeting ports, shipping lanes and agricultural infrastructure Moscow is not just waging war on Ukraine but also "weaponising hunger against millions in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East." Paula Ritter-Moschutz, a spokeswoman for Agriculture and Customs at the European Commission, told Al Jazeera that Europe's own food security is not at stake and that the EU is "fully committed to continue supporting Ukraine's access to international markets." "We are continuously assessing its implications for agriculture, global food security, and the economy," she said. "We support the initiatives for a moratorium on Black Sea attacks."
At least 30 sailors have been killed or gone missing in the recent surge of attacks, according to Bulgarian and Romanian authorities and maritime tracking services.
Moscow’s alleged campaign follows Ukrainian strikes on Russian freighters and oil tankers in the Black Sea and the adjoining Sea of Azov, amid attacks on oil refineries, military plants and warehouses. Those strikes intensified in July. Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher at Germany’s Bremen University who analyses the war, told Al Jazeera that “a shadow deal [not to strike each other’s cargo ships] was breached by Ukraine in the summer.” He said Russian President Vladimir Putin “definitely liked the idea of completely ruining Ukrainian exports” and that “Putin did issue several warnings before systemic strikes on the Odesa group of ports began.” Putin said in December that “if the attacks on [Russian] tankers continue, we will consider taking retaliatory measures against ships from countries assisting Ukraine.”
Constant Russian strikes by jet-powered drones, cruise and ballistic missiles have brought operations in Ukraine's largest maritime hub, Odesa, to a halt. "Today, after the ports of Odesa are paralysed, there's no way out. Hardly more than 50 percent of grain can be exported via land routes," Viktor Honcharenko, president of the Association of Farmers and Private Land Owners of Ukraine, told Al Jazeera. "Lots of wheat remained on the fields, it's not being harvested," he said, warning of "penniless farmers, penniless medium-sized businesses" and lost jobs. He said small farmers would be hit hardest, because larger industrial farms will export first by rail and truck.
Up to 60 million tonnes of grain have been harvested in Ukraine this year, but only half can be shipped out of the country, according to Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch, who said the country’s overloaded railways cannot get larger volumes out of the country. He said Ukraine could develop domestic processing or switch to legumes and oil crops welcome in the EU, but that would cut farmers’ profits, and he put the cost of the subsidies needed for such a shift at “one billion euros.”
Wheat prices have risen by a fifth over the past 12 months. Chicago wheat futures, a global benchmark, went from $5.03 per bushel in October 2025 to $6.03 in October this year, with the US-Israel war on Iran, global warming and a drought in South Africa also contributing to the spike, according to Al Jazeera. Russian farmers and grain exporters, who usually ship more than two-thirds of their harvests via the Black Sea, are testing exports through the Arctic port of Murmansk, though the distance between farms and buyers will significantly increase costs.