Russia halted participation on Monday in the year-old U.N.-brokered deal which lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea, just hours after a blast knocked out Russia's bridge to Crimea in what Moscow called a strike by Ukrainian sea drones.
Turkey has agreed to guarantee the safety of ships with Ukrainian grain that will go through the “grain corridor” in the event that the Russian Federation withdraws from the agreement.
This is some bullshit. The first time Russia blockaded Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea, they had the plausible deniability that they weren't aware it was going to cause mass food shortages in poorer countries. Now they know full well that's what will happen, and they're doing it again.
The West would be justified in clearing a path in the Black Seas themselves, in my opinion. Russia's being little terrorist bitches.
They're in a lose/lose situation. If they don't retaliate in some way, it weakens them. Since they can't retaliate militarily or diplomatically, it has to be economically.
This just opens the door for Erdogan to demonstrate his worth to NATO though. He already threatened them with his navy once. He gets nothing but free brownie points for doing it again.
Nothing about blowing holes through Russian warships, simply escorting Ukrainian Black Sea grain shipments. Russia is free to fuck off or fire the first shot if they are that determined to let Africans starve from lack of grain.
It's not as black and white as that. There's obviously a point where the West would have to push back against Russia. Most likely this grain deal won't be enough for the West to make any significant new moves apart from what they're already doing, but Russia is playing a stupid game by using mass hunger in poorer countries as a pawn in this war.