Reopen the Port of Odesa

By JOEL D. JOSEPH

The Ukraine has been called the breadbasket of the world for good reason. It is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, sunflower oil and corn. For the past year Russia has agreed to allow Ukraine to export grain and vegetable oils. However, Russia has pulled out of the UN-Turkey negotiated agreement to allow grain shipments from Odesa and other Ukrainian Black Sea ports. The United Nations’ secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply disappointed” by Moscow’s decision, and that millions of people facing hunger, as well as consumers confronting a cost-of-living crisis, would “pay a price.”

Russia announced that it will blockade shipments of grain causing millions of Africans and Asians to face starvation because they rely on Ukrainian grain imports to feed their people.

Before Russia invaded the Ukraine, most of the food produced by Ukraine – enough to feed 400 million people – was exported through the country’s seven Black Sea ports. In the eight months before the war began, about 51 million metric tons of grain were exported through these ports.

The navies of the leading NATO countries, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, should move their warships to the coast of Odesa to force Russia to lift the blockade. This would not be an act of war, but an act of peace with purely humanitarian objectives.

The Russian blockade constitutes a war crime. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) explicitly lists starvation and barring humanitarian relief as prosecutable war crimes. Article 23 of the Geneva Convention provides that food and medical products must be allowed to be shipped into and out of countries at war. The United States and its NATO partners have every right to ensure that food exports are not blockaded to prevent massive, unnecessary and inhumane starvation in poor African and Asian nations.

President Joe Biden, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should formally notify Russian President Vladimir Putin that its navies are seeking to enforce international law to allow the export of grain and other food products from the Ukraine. At the same time, the NATO navies should send their warships, and submarines to the Black Sea to show Mr. Putin that they are serious.

One of the most significant blockades in recent history was not on water but on land. The city of Berlin, divided into East and West zones at the time, was blockaded by the Soviet Union from June 1948 until May 1949. All shipments by rail, road, and water were cut off from the Western sectors of the city. For nearly a year, the United Kingdom and the United States carried out a massive airlift operation that brought millions of tons of food and supplies into Berlin. This extraordinary effort overcame the blockade and saved the city.

Now we must use our powerful military resources to break the Russian blockade of the Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The Soviet Union did not shoot down airplanes that broke the post-war embargo of Berlin and Russia will not sink American, French or British ships because Russia does not want to fight a war against the major western powers.

The naval blockade of the Ukraine cannot be defeated by an airlift. There is simply too much grain to export by air. It is possible to ship grain from the Ukraine to neutral countries by rail and truck, and then from those countries by sea, but the infrastructure for this has not been established.

The most efficient way to ship grain from the Ukraine to Africa and Asia is by sea. We should not allow Russia’s unprovoked war against the Ukraine to cause the starvation of millions of poor people in the developing world. The United States and NATO have a moral duty to prevent the starvation of millions of people. The US Navy should lead the world by peacefully forcing Russian to lift its blockade of Odessa.

Joel Joseph is an attorney and chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting American-made products. Email joeldjoseph@ gmail.com. Phone 310-MADE-USA

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2023

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