A sleepy Greek port has become vital to the war in Ukraine

Greek city of Alexandroupolis, 15km from the border with Turkey, briefly ran short of eggs and chicken this summer. The reason was a three-day influx of hungry American marines who had arrived on the . Alexandroupolis has turned into something of a boom town of late, no longer reliant on selling coffee, cake and souvenirs to tourists from Turkey and the Balkans. For that it can thank Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has caused activity at the city’s port to explode. The port’s geography makes it attractive to ’s logistics planners. It is on the Aegean Sea, with good road and rail links north through the alliance’s eastern flank. In particular, it provides access to Ukraine via Bulgaria and Romania. Using it as a way-station skirts the Black Sea, which Russia patrols, and the Bosporus, a choke-point controlled by Turkey, a member of but a capricious one. Better still, the port has plenty of spare capacity, unlike the two larger Greek ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus (which also happen to be run by firms with links to, respectively, the Russian and Chinese governments).