Russia struggles to reroute grain exports amid Black Sea collapse

Russia is scrambling to reroute its grain exports after a significant drop in shipments through the Black Sea. The Foreign Intelligence Service reports that Moscow is now focusing on the Baltic Sea, northern ports, and China to offset the decline. However, these alternative routes face capacity limits, higher costs, and logistical hurdles. In the second ten-day period of September, Russia exported just 347,000 tonnes of wheat, a sharp decline from the 1.3 million tonnes shipped during the same period in 2025. The port of Novorossiysk, a key hub, handled only 72,500 tonnes this year, compared to 696,000 tonnes a year earlier.

Russia is exploring several new routes to move its grain. The Ultramar terminal in Ust-Luga has started accepting shipments, with September applications reaching about 260,000 tonnes. Even at full capacity, this route can only handle around 500,000 tonnes per month, far below the 60 million tonnes annually managed by Russia's southern ports. Another option is Murmansk, where Russian Railways approved the first shipment of 40,000 tonnes from Stavropol Krai. However, the high costs, estimated at $18-25 per tonne, make this route prohibitively expensive.

In the east, Russia is increasing grain shipments through China, with the New Overland Grain Corridor rising from 2.3 million tonnes in 2024 to 5.8 million tonnes in 2025. For 2026, Russia expects to ship approximately 9 million tonnes through this corridor. However, strict restrictions, including railway infrastructure limitations and phytosanitary requirements, pose significant challenges. The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine notes that Russia cannot quickly replicate the scale of the Black Sea system, as the alternative routes lack the necessary capacity and infrastructure.

Adding to the challenges, Estonia has banned the transit of Russian and Belarusian grain through its territory. The intelligence service emphasizes that while Russia can distribute some grain through other routes, it cannot assemble a new system of the same scale due to the limitations of the Baltic, Murmansk, and Chinese routes.