JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
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The Ukrainian military taking back Snake Island is a minor game changer for Ukraine's grain export problem. Specifically, it stops the Russians from having a land based firing position that would support Russian ships interfering with ship traffic to and from Ukraine. Ukraine still will not be able to bring large freighters into their Black Sea Ports and pick-up grain and take it to markets in the Middle East and Africa because those ship would offer to much of a prize value for the Russian Navy. However, I am not an expert on any of these matters but it would seem to me that the door is now open for Ukraine to use barges to transport Ukraine grain from Odessa to Black Sea Ports to the west like the Port of Constanta, Romania and the Port of Varna, Bulgaria. Barges and the tugboats that drive them don't have as big a hull draft as military ships so they could transit closer to the Ukrainian shore line and Ukraine wouldn't have to lift all its mines off the Port of Odesa needed to protect against A Russian amphibious landing only enough of the mines along the Ukrainian cost to provide a channel along the coast for the barges to travel. This export idea isn't going to solve Ukraine's grain export problem of approximately 20 million tonnes in Ukraine silos as of today. But it will offer Ukraine another export outlet beside trucking it to it's western and southern neighbors or barge transport on the Danube river and every incremental help provides valuable relief for Ukrainian farmers who are really financially hurting with their market in ruins with the inability to readily get their product to the world market. This food commodity problem brought on by Russia's unjustified invasion of Ukraine has brought on a full blown food crisis for the world that necessitates the world doing more than what it is to help those that will starve to death or starve to the point that they will get sick and die from the sickness. Two days ago, the Wall Street Journal had an article which reported that around 900,000 people in Somalia, Ethiopia , South Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan because of this food crisis are on the verge of starvation meaning such people are experiencing a diet of one meal or less per day; almost certainly the world will see tens of thousands of these people die over the next year if you factor in the children perspective who are vulnerable to many illnesses when experiencing a dramatic lack of food intake. The world needs to do more to secure Ukraine's grain export avenues from the bullies and thugs of the Russian military and government. If need be build another two snake islands along Ukraine's coast between Odesa and Snake Island and you put an anti-ship battery on each island that can fire a missile into any Russian Ship obstructing these grain exports so as to provide security to this barge export channel! Every year the world scraps numerous ships you take a bunch of those ships and you sink them where you want to put the island and then you dump a huge amount of the concrete debris blocks from the abundance of Ukrainian buildings that have been destroyed by Russian artillery and planes since February and then use dredging ships to get the soil from the coastline to finish off the small island, snake islands are only like 3/4 miles length and the same width; the Black Sea on average is less than a mile deep, China has built islands in the ocean which is much deeper so it can't be that hard!
