EditEU foreign policy chief calls for revival of Black Sea grain deal
Kaja Kallas urges international action to restore safe navigation and protect the Ukrainian export infrastructure
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has called for the revival of a Black Sea grain arrangement modeled on a short-lived 2022 initiative. She argues on 23 September that only collective diplomatic pressure can restore safe passage for civilian vessels and protect the critical infrastructure that once carried the bulk of Ukraine’s agricultural exports.
Speaking at a United Nations side-event on global food security, Kallas said the international community must encourage efforts to ensure navigational safety, shield port facilities, and reopen a trade route whose near-total shutdown since August has sharpened pressure on world food markets.
The original Black Sea Grain Initiative, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, operated from July 2022 until Russia withdrew in July 2023; during its existence it enabled the export of roughly 33 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain despite the ongoing war. Kallas’s proposal extends beyond the earlier deal’s focus on shipping corridors to include explicit protection for grain terminals, warehouses, and logistics hubs in the Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi port complex, which historically handled about 90 percent of Ukraine’s agricultural shipments.
Grain from Ukraine feeds people all over the world.
But Russia is blocking exports through the Black Sea and is deliberately causing global food insecurity.
The EU is calling for attacks to stop and grain to flow again.
Food must never be used as a weapon of war.
My remarks… pic.twitter.com/xm8N64cfxx
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) September 22, 2026
The urgency of the appeal stems from an unprecedented escalation in Russian attacks. In July alone the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure recorded 35 strikes on ships in ports, 22 attacks at sea, and 67 hits on port infrastructure. By comparison, the whole of 2025 saw only 14 attacks on vessels. Since June Russian forces have targeted at least 57 cargo ships in the Black Sea, including vessels carrying Ukrainian grain. Cumulative damage since the start of the full-scale invasion exceeds one thousand elements of port infrastructure and more than three hundred ships, with over two hundred people killed or injured in port-related incidents. The commercial consequences have been immediate. Ukrainian seaborne grain exports in August fell by approximately 75 percent year-on-year, while the number of ship calls at the ports of Greater Odesa dropped from seven or eight per day to just one. Shipowners and insurers concluded that risk could no longer be assessed or underwritten on commercial terms, effectively paralyzing the maritime corridor.
Export collapse and global market shock
The disruption has reverberated far beyond Ukraine. A report by the Tony Blair Institute describes how missile attacks on vessels and port facilities destroyed the ability of commercial operators to price risk, choking off the primary export route for a country that normally supplies 15 percent of global maize exports, 10 percent of wheat, 15 to 20 percent of barley, and roughly half of the world’s sunflower oil. Around 90 percent of those goods traditionally moved through the Black Sea. In August the FAO Food Price Index reached its highest level since late 2022; wheat prices rose 15 percent year-on-year and sugar prices climbed nearly 12 percent month-on-month. Kallas linked the Black Sea crisis to wider stresses on global food systems, citing conflict in the Gulf and the effects of climate change, and insisted that “food must never be used as a weapon, either in the Black Sea or anywhere else.”
The European Union has responded with both emergency and structural measures. In 2025 the EU mobilized €2.1 billion to strengthen global food security through short-term relief and longer-term resilience programs. Inside Ukraine it has supported grain storage options, assisted farmers and agrifood small and medium-sized enterprises unable to sell their harvests, and facilitated cargo movements at land border crossings. The EU’s Solidarity Lanes, alternative routes by land and river introduced after May 2022, have already enabled trade worth around €304 billion. Yet Kallas and other European officials emphasize that these land corridors cannot fully replace the efficiency and volume of the Black Sea maritime route.
Mutual constraints and diplomatic openings
The blockade is not one-sided. Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on terminals in Novorossiysk and ports on the Sea of Azov have reportedly reduced grain export capacity from Russia’s highest-volume terminals by about 70 percent. Wheat shipments from Russian ports in August fell to between 1.5 and 3 million tonnes, compared with a usual figure of around 5 million. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies note that grain flows are currently constrained on both sides of the sea: Russian attacks have effectively shut down most of the Ukrainian maritime corridor, while Ukrainian strikes have deprived Russia of the majority of its most efficient export routes. Together the two countries previously accounted for roughly 30 percent of global wheat trade and 12 percent of corn exports; the air war over the Black Sea is estimated to have cut combined grain and agricultural exports by two-thirds in August.
Diplomatic efforts to reopen the corridor continue. Turkey, which co-brokered the original 2022–2023 agreement, has prepared its own plan for the safe passage of grain vessels and remains in contact with both Moscow and Kyiv. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan confirmed at the end of August that Ankara had submitted proposals to both sides and received responses, though significant differences remain. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged on 22 September that the Turkish initiative had been raised during recent talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Vladimir Putin and was subsequently pursued through diplomatic channels. Moscow has not yet issued a public response to Kallas’s proposal; in August it rejected a similar Turkish-brokered idea, describing it as offering Kyiv only a “brief respite.”
Bulgaria has also entered the discussion. President Iliana Iotova told the 81st session of the UN General Assembly that Sofia is preparing an initiative to transform the Black Sea from a zone of heightened risk into one of free transport, energy, trade, and digital corridors, and will seek regional consensus and United Nations attention.
Kallas’s call therefore sits within a broader, if still fragile, diplomatic conversation. She noted that officials from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Office for Project Services, and the World Food Programme participated in the recent discussion, underscoring the humanitarian stakes. Ukraine itself has repeatedly called for a full and unconditional ceasefire since March 2025. Whether the combination of European pressure, Turkish mediation, and growing global concern over food prices can produce a workable arrangement remains uncertain.
Restoring predictability to this vital trade route, Kallas argued, would benefit not only the parties directly involved but the wider international community that depends on stable supplies of grain and oilseeds.
Sources: FocusEurope.pl, Reuters, Hürriyet
Turkey says it has Black Sea grain plan and is in contact with Russia, Ukraine
Caption: High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, arrives for a plenary debate on the ‘Urgent Need for EU Support to Ukraine against Russia’s Escalation of Its War of Aggression’ at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, 16 September 2026. The current plenary session runs from 14 to 17 September 2026. EPA/RONALD WITTEK
Updated: September 24, 2026 - 11:11
