Ukraine welcomes Baltic push to ban Russian grain transit through EU
on Google
Ukraine's Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi thanked the prime ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia on Oct. 11 for launching an EU push to ban Russia from transporting its grain through the bloc.
"It is important to see this initiative now being advanced at the EU level," Vysotskyi wrote on X.
"Thank you to our Baltic partners for their consistent and strong support of Ukraine," he said.
Lithuania's Prime Minister Mindauga Sinkevicius called for the EU to impose sanctions on Russian grain, and to ban transit, on Oct. 8, which was followed the day after by a joint letter from the three Baltic prime ministers to put it on the EU agenda.
That letter calls on the bloc to do more to prevent grain stolen from occupied territory from being exported via the EU, to ban Russian grain from transiting EU territory, and to further bolster EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes, to help Kyiv get more grain out to markets.
A Russian-imposed blockade of the Black Sea is hurting Ukraine's ability to collect tax revenue from agricultural exports, causing global grain prices to rise, and putting at risk countries in North Africa and the Middle East, which are highly dependent on Ukrainian exports.
"The EU must not become a channel through which Russia compensates for the economic consequences of its own aggression," the letter reads.
When such a ban could be agreed on and implemented remains unknown, but the three Prime Ministers will attend a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Oct. 14, where President Volodymyr Zelensky is also expected to attend.
And on Oct. 26, Vysotskyi is expected to attend a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg.
