A look at the numbers makes the dimensions clear: Between 95 and 98 percent of Ukraine's grain exports were processed via the Black Sea before the Russian attack.

This path is now blocked by the war.

Time is running out in the search for other transport routes, because the more than 20 million tons of grain that are still stored in Ukrainian warehouses must soon be taken out of the country so that there is room for the new harvest in summer.

If this does not succeed, large parts of last year's and this year's grain could rot.

In peacetime, Ukraine exported up to five million tons of wheat a month, but under the current conditions, with great efforts, it is able to export a little over a million tons.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Reinhard Veser

Editor in Politics.

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There are numerous obstacles to transport over land: Russia is targeting railway connections with rockets – most recently on Thursday night in several districts in western Ukraine.

In addition, the transport routes are already overloaded because everything that would otherwise reach Ukraine by sea – such as fuel, which is important for farmers and the military – now also has to be brought to Ukraine by land.

In addition, the railways in Ukraine have a larger track width, which dates back to Soviet times.

When transporting to the seaports in EU countries - such as Constanta in Romania or in Poland - the goods therefore have to be reloaded or reloaded.

Easing of sanctions against transport corridor?

In one EU country, this obstacle does not exist: Lithuania.

Therefore, the idea of ​​bringing Ukrainian grain via Belarus to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea was raised from various quarters.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on May 18 that "alternative transport routes" for Ukrainian grain could be explored.

He also said that the global food crisis cannot be solved without Ukrainian agricultural products and without Belarusian and Russian food and fertilizers.

The Belarusian potash salts for fertilizers have meanwhile been subject to sanctions because of the suppression of the democracy movement by the EU and the USA.

This does not yet apply to Russian fertilizers, but the financial sanctions against Moscow are intended to hinder the sale of Russian fertilizers.

Guterres is associated with a mediation initiative to suspend or relax Western sanctions against Belarus and Russia with regard to fertilizer exports, in exchange for a transport corridor for Ukrainian grain being set up through Belarus.

In addition to political will in the western capitals, this would depend on the position of the Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko.

No wedge between Minsk and Moscow

A letter he recently wrote to the UN Secretary-General makes his constraints clear.

It is clear that Lukashenko – like Russian President Vladimir Putin – wants to use the food crisis triggered by the Ukraine war to get the sanctions lifted;

It is also clear that hopes of driving a wedge between Belarus and its protecting power Russia via grain exports are misguided.

Lukashenko's media people presumably published the contents of the earlier-dated letter on May 23 in order to allay corresponding Russian concerns.

A few days before the letter to Guterres was published, the American Wall Street Journal reported on the UN Secretary-General's efforts to negotiate.

Lukashenko's letter does not address the idea of ​​using Belarus as a transport country for the grain.

Instead, true to the usual Moscow rhetoric, the ruler accuses "Western countries" of disregarding the interests and concerns of "other partners, especially Russia" and "provoking a hot conflict in Ukraine".

"We are not the aggressors," writes Lukashenko about Belarus' role.

While the country serves as a staging area for Moscow, Lukashenko has so far not sent any troops of his own to Ukraine, presumably in view of strong anti-war sentiment in the country.

In Brussels, lifting or even relaxing sanctions against Belarus is categorically ruled out, both by the member states and by the Commission.

Only one kind of transit fee can be imagined to transport grain to Klaipeda port.

According to the Lithuanian government, there is free capacity there to transport around 13 million tons of grain by ship.

This is also directly related to the sanctions against Belarus.

All supply contracts for potash had to be terminated by the end of May.

This fertilizer had been shipped from Belarus mainly via Klaipeda.

For the same reason, the UN Secretary-General's proposal to lift this sanction in exchange for grain transport is misleading – then the port would be busy again.

In Brussels and also in Vilnius one can well imagine that Minsk is open to a deal without touching the sanctions.

According to the assessment, the regime urgently needs money, and Lukashenko can try to free himself from Russia's grip.

It is striking that the European Union last imposed sanctions on Belarus on March 9;

after that there were only packages against Russia.