Ukraine restores Danube River ports in emergency effort to get grain out

theguardian.com:

Ukraine is restoring and expanding some of its long-decommissioned river ports on the Danube to facilitate the exportation of grain due to Russia’s Black Sea blockade.

Before the war, Ukrainian river ports on the Danube were seldom used, with some of them in complete disrepair. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its control of exit routes to the Black Sea, Kyiv is resuscitating its old river harbours in order to avoid the sea blockade and accelerate the exportation of the country’s wheat.

“Take the example of the Reni River port,’’ Alla Stoyanova, the head of the department of agricultural policy of Odesa region, told the Guardian. The port was among the most important of the Danube region during the Soviet Union and a passageway to Romania. “It wasn’t used at all recently. So now we are working to expand it, alongside other river ports, to increase capacity. As we speak, over 160 ships are awaiting in the Black Sea to enter the Sulina canal, but they can’t because the capacity of that canal is only 5-6 ships a day.”

At the beginning of the Russian invasion, silos and ports across Odesa were brimming with more than 25m tonnes of grain. Today, 5m of these have been exported via alternative street, rail and river routes.

“In March we managed to export 200,000 tonnes”, said Stoyanova. “In April 1.6m; in May 1m 743,000 tonnes; and in June over 2.5m. But this capacity is still not enough, because normally with our six ports in the Odesa region we used to export 5-6m tonnes of grain every month.’’

Before the war, about five or six ships left the port of Odesa carrying a total of 100,000 tonnes of grain, with one single vessel having the capacity to carry up to 50,000 tonnes.

“One truck can carry only 25 tonnes and a