The blockade of Ukraine’s ports is worsening world hunger

of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 was caused, in part, by a global food crisis. The Ottoman empire’s entry into the first world war, on Germany’s side, blocked grain exports from the Russian empire, which then encompassed Ukraine. By forcing open the passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, Britain and its allies hoped to knock the Turks out of the war and restore Russian trade. That would help lower , and strengthen Russia’s weak finances. But the landings in the Dardanelles turned to disaster and the allies withdrew after a year.A century on, the West faces a similar conundrum: how to get Ukraine’s vast food crop past Russia’s blockade to relieve global food shortages. Andrey Stavnitser, the owner of Ukraine’s largest private shipping-terminal operator, , says that Ukrainian grain silos are largely full, and there is not enough room for this year’s crop. “If we can’t store it, it will start rotting,” he says. Frustratingly, Russia is able to export its grain, including crops stolen from occupied land, from the Black Sea while Ukraine’s is shut in. “Unblocking Odessa is as important as providing weapons to Ukraine,” he says.