Naval operation off Odessa, deliveries of anti-ship weapons or land bypass maneuvers: Ukraine and its allies are seeking by all means to break the maritime blockade imposed by Russia in the Black Sea. One of the challenges is to curb the risk of a global food crisis, or even of famine in the countries, such as Egypt or Lebanon, which are the most dependent on grain exports from the Ukrainian “breadbasket”.
Hurry up. “Millions of people around the world will die because the ports are blocked”, said David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Program, Thursday, May 19. According to him, Ukrainian ports must be operational within the next sixty days to avoid a global crisis. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading agricultural exporters, supplying around 12% of the cereals and half of the sunflower oil consumed on the planet.
First option, the United States and some of their allies are considering arming Ukraine so that it itself breaks the maritime blockade imposed by Russia several weeks before the start of its invasion. On Thursday, the Reuters agency revealed that Washington is hesitating between the American Harpoon missile and the Norwegian Naval Strike Missile (NSM). “Ukraine no longer has an operational fleet and the country has too few Neptune missiles [antinavires de conception ukrainienne] to neutralize the 30 Russian warships capable of firing missiles »explains Andrii Ryjenko, retired captain of the Ukrainian naval forces and president of the Ukrainian Institute for law and safety at sea. For this expert, the best solution is indeed to use Harpoon or NSM missiles.
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“Their deployment in Ukraine seems difficult to me for reasons of system availability, delivery, staff training; at best one could imagine the truck-mounted version of the NSM, but I doubt that enough were produced; we could also imagine a modification of the Harpoon sea-sea in a land-sea version, but it would probably require retired personnel and American volunteers »however, believes Alexandre Sheldon-Duplaix, naval analyst and historian, co-author of battle fleets (Editions Ouest-France, 2018).
The track of an allied military operation is also under discussion. “Equipment deliveries will not be enough to secure grain export convoys”says a Ukrainian diplomat, “hence the idea of launching an international naval operation, either under the British aegis, or under NATO supervision”. According to him, it would be a question of securing navigation corridors, departing from Odessa, under Ukrainian control, in order to leave the waters controlled by Russia.
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