The grain is trapped.
Not missing.

A strait closed in an evening.

At 18:10 local time on 10 July, Russia's border service stopped accepting requests to pass the Kerch Strait. The order followed Ukrainian drone strikes on ships in the Sea of Azov. No Russian authority announced it. Ship-tracking data show traffic collapsing within a week.

Strait: IMF PortWatch. Exports, import bill, people and recovery: Watchfloor model, central case, October 2026 to September 2027. Hunger and recovery are model scenarios with low confidence, not observations or IPC projections.

Kerch Strait transits. Source: IMF PortWatch. Ships sailing with transponders off are missed: zero means no visible commercial traffic.

Cheap at the port. Dear on arrival.

The Sea of Azov ports handled a quarter to a third of Russia's seaborne wheat. Other routes, through the Baltic and the Caspian, so far replace about a quarter of what the south lost. Grain prices in southern Russia have roughly halved. Yet importers pay more.

This is not a year of missing grain. World wheat stocks are about 276 million tonnes, and Turkey and Egypt harvested record crops. The grain is stranded behind the Black Sea. On fuel, the closure's own effect is mostly local: the 2026 diesel spike comes from lost Gulf exports and damage to Russian refineries.

Egypt pays in money. Yemen and Sudan in hunger.

For ten importers that depend on Black Sea wheat, the extra bill over the next twelve months is about US$1.5 billion. Egypt pays the most, but its fixed-price bread subsidy shields consumers. Countries that buy at market prices, with no buffer, pay in hunger. Humanitarian food assistance pays too: about US$20 million more for cereals, a year of rations for about 310,000 people.

Central case, October 2026 to September 2027. Hunger: dark is the low end of the range, pale the high end. Sources: Watchfloor model; IPC; USDA; UN Comtrade; Fastmarkets; our estimates.

Serious damage, concentrated in a few terminals.

Physical damage has shut Kernel's grain terminal at Chornomorsk, about 0.8 million tonnes a month. Most of Greater Odesa's capacity is intact but idle: foreign ships and insurers have stayed away since 20–22 July. The Danube ports still work, and with rail and road they now carry almost all of Ukraine's exports.

Damage grade 2022–2026, most weight on 2026, kept separate from whether ships call. Russian ports: status only. Coastline and rivers: Natural Earth.

Chornomorsk, 7 and 17 July 2026. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026. Outlines © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Izmail, radar change after the August strikes (left) and in a normal period with no strike (right). Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026.

Taman, 28 and 31 July 2026. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026.

Each reported or claimed strike, compared with normal periods when no strike was reported. Radar shows that a surface changed; it cannot name the object or grade the damage.

Million tonnes a month. Greater Odesa: all cargo, first half of 2026. Moving now: September 2026.

Fly the Black Sea. Walk the ports.

Every strike report dated and linked to its source, satellite photos before and after, and the trade that depends on each port. Follow the tour stop by stop, or explore on your own.

The Black Sea globeTake the 15-stop tour Odesa, Chornomorsk, Pivdennyi, Izmail, NovorossiyskOpen the five ports

Globe: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026 · terrain, Bing imagery and Google Photorealistic 3D Tiles via Cesium ion · © OpenStreetMap contributors. Ports: Sentinel-2 photos, OpenStreetMap buildings and relief; the sharper photo is Esri World Imagery, for shapes, not for damage. Best on a computer; on a phone, the tour works with a tap.

First ships in weeks. The full network outside the occupied ports in about three years.

Insurance and shipowners' confidence set the pace, not the cranes. The 2022 grain deal moved its first ship ten days after signing. A ceasefire now would bring the import bill down to about US$0.5–0.7 billion.

Five points for planners and donors.

35 pages, 116 sources.

The Kerch Strait and the Black Sea ports: trade, fuel and food after the 2026 closures, and how long a restart would take. Port by port, with every satellite measurement set against normal periods when no strike was reported, the model's central case and range, and the signals that would move the numbers.

Download the report · PDF 3.7 MB

The limits, said plainly.

Satellite images at 10 metres see fires, burn scars and changes in the ground surface, not damaged cranes, conveyors or silos: a port without a signal is not proof of a port without damage. Ship-tracking misses vessels with transponders off. Strike reports are kept in three kinds: confirmed, single source, and claims; a claim is never counted as a fact. Hunger, import bills and recovery times are model scenarios with low confidence, not observations.