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It'd take a lot of trucks and train cars to move one ship's worth of grain. Consider that highways, train lines, and ports don't necessarily have a ton of extra

It'd take a lot of trucks and train cars to move one ship's worth of grain. Consider that highways, train lines, and ports don't necessarily have a ton of extra capacity available, for reasons of economy, that upgrading those takes time, and can be hard to finance if the situation is perceived to be temporary (so, may take significant government intervention to make it happen). Plus, you go to all the effort and expense of doing that, then Russia hits a few important bridges on the Ukraine side of your routes, and now you're back to nearly-zero capacity.

trhway 4y ago
Russia has already struck the Zatoka bridge south/west of Odessa, the best/shortest route from Odessa to Danube river and Black Sea ports in Romania. Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. (correction thanks to the commenter below - gauge, not wheelbase) Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad, its ally in Syria. Russia runs very intensive propaganda campaign representing European help to Ukraine wrt. wheat export as basically Europe stealing the wheat. Its propaganda also celebrates the food prices rising in the "collective West" countries as supposed result of the sanctions, and Russia will do anything to stimulate the rise of the prices in order to foment public push against the sanctions.
- Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
  > Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad Well, no hunger for good people of Syria then
  - thghtihadanacct 4y ago
    Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
    - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
      Make up your mind - it is either in Syria or ... where? 500kt is not a small amount
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
        that question is for putin to answer – where did he take it?
        Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        to Syria if you have different info - please share
        alexvoda 4y ago
        On route. Lost during shipping.
  - trhway 4y ago
    >for good people yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
    - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
      Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed. Looks like win-win to me <skipping crap about food as a weapon>
      - trhway 4y ago
        >It means general population of the country would be fed. Nothing indicates that. If anything, what we know about Russia and Assad allows to reasonably suspect that it is only pro-Assad regions will be fed while others will be subjected to the rising prices and shortages. >Looks like win-win to me That win for Russia, Assad and pro-Assad population comes at the cost of increased prices and shortages for the Middle East and Africa at least (the regions which directly imported from Ukraine), as well as rising prices across the world - all that being the direct result of the Russian war hitting availability of tens of million tons of Ukraine produced food. I.e. there were 2 alternatives - 1) tens of millions tons of Ukraine produced food would normally be available to the whole world vs. 2) Russia delivers only 500K tons to its Syrian allies. As we see Russia used military force to enforce the alternative 2). ><skipping crap about food as a weapon> Food isn't the weapon. Using military force to intentionally create food unavailability is the weapon. It seems like you intentionally missing the point that Russia is using its military force in Ukraine to : 1. limit the availability of the Ukraine produced food on the international market 2. put as much as possible of what is produced by Ukraine under Russian control and thus to allow Russia to create food unavailability at will at the place and time of its choosing. Btw, interesting parallel with Nazi Germany - it wanted to grab those fertile lands for itself and to clean them of Slavic people, and Russia similarly wants those lands for itself and to clean them of Ukrainians (and Russia has been actually succeeding at that more than Germany back then as Russia has already forced more than 12 million Ukrainians out of those lands).
- Xylakant 4y ago
  > Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Ok top of that, there is a gauge change when crossing over from Ukraine to the west and the infrastructure towards the west is hardly at the level required. For example, train crossings from Poland to Germany are not all electrified, so you need another change of engine.
  - dreamcompiler 4y ago
    Side note: This gauge difference worked in Ukraine's favor in one respect. Russia's military logistics infrastructure is heavily train-based, but Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference. This meant they had to switch to trucks which are old and unreliable and they got bogged down in mud, which meant they had to stick to roads where they were easy for the Ukrainians to attack. And those transshipment points where the Russians had to unload all their cargo from trains and reload it onto trucks also became fat juicy targets. Yet another example where Russia didn't think carefully enough before invading.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      Ukranian and Russian railway gauge are the same, 1520mm. It is EU that is different with 1435mm.
      - dreamcompiler 4y ago
        I read an article early in the war that specifically stated the opposite, but apparently it was wrong and now of course I can't find it. You're correct.
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    dreamcompiler wrote: “Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference.” There is no gauge difference between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, even some (small) parts of Polish railways use Russian gauge - remnant of the times when Soviet raw materials were delivered in bulk to Polish metallurgic plants.
- rok3 4y ago
  > It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Just a quick point of clarification for anyone trying to look this up. The correct term is "gauge" (distance between the rails) instead of "wheelbase" (distance between front and rear wheels). Most European countries use tracks with a gauge of 1,435mm but Ukraine uses 1,520mm.

trhway 4y ago

Russia has already struck the Zatoka bridge south/west of Odessa, the best/shortest route from Odessa to Danube river and Black Sea ports in Romania. Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. (correction thanks to the commenter below - gauge, not wheelbase) Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad, its ally in Syria. Russia runs very intensive propaganda campaign representing European help to Ukraine wrt. wheat export as basically Europe stealing the wheat. Its propaganda also celebrates the food prices rising in the "collective West" countries as supposed result of the sanctions, and Russia will do anything to stimulate the rise of the prices in order to foment public push against the sanctions.

Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
> Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad Well, no hunger for good people of Syria then
- thghtihadanacct 4y ago
  Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
  - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
    Make up your mind - it is either in Syria or ... where? 500kt is not a small amount
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      that question is for putin to answer – where did he take it?
      - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        to Syria if you have different info - please share
        alexvoda 4y ago
        On route. Lost during shipping.
- trhway 4y ago
  >for good people yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
  - Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
    Assad (even with extended family) cannot eat 500kt of grain. It means general population of the country would be fed. Looks like win-win to me <skipping crap about food as a weapon>
    - trhway 4y ago
      >It means general population of the country would be fed. Nothing indicates that. If anything, what we know about Russia and Assad allows to reasonably suspect that it is only pro-Assad regions will be fed while others will be subjected to the rising prices and shortages. >Looks like win-win to me That win for Russia, Assad and pro-Assad population comes at the cost of increased prices and shortages for the Middle East and Africa at least (the regions which directly imported from Ukraine), as well as rising prices across the world - all that being the direct result of the Russian war hitting availability of tens of million tons of Ukraine produced food. I.e. there were 2 alternatives - 1) tens of millions tons of Ukraine produced food would normally be available to the whole world vs. 2) Russia delivers only 500K tons to its Syrian allies. As we see Russia used military force to enforce the alternative 2). ><skipping crap about food as a weapon> Food isn't the weapon. Using military force to intentionally create food unavailability is the weapon. It seems like you intentionally missing the point that Russia is using its military force in Ukraine to : 1. limit the availability of the Ukraine produced food on the international market 2. put as much as possible of what is produced by Ukraine under Russian control and thus to allow Russia to create food unavailability at will at the place and time of its choosing. Btw, interesting parallel with Nazi Germany - it wanted to grab those fertile lands for itself and to clean them of Slavic people, and Russia similarly wants those lands for itself and to clean them of Ukrainians (and Russia has been actually succeeding at that more than Germany back then as Russia has already forced more than 12 million Ukrainians out of those lands).
Xylakant 4y ago
> Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Ok top of that, there is a gauge change when crossing over from Ukraine to the west and the infrastructure towards the west is hardly at the level required. For example, train crossings from Poland to Germany are not all electrified, so you need another change of engine.
- dreamcompiler 4y ago
  Side note: This gauge difference worked in Ukraine's favor in one respect. Russia's military logistics infrastructure is heavily train-based, but Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference. This meant they had to switch to trucks which are old and unreliable and they got bogged down in mud, which meant they had to stick to roads where they were easy for the Ukrainians to attack. And those transshipment points where the Russians had to unload all their cargo from trains and reload it onto trucks also became fat juicy targets. Yet another example where Russia didn't think carefully enough before invading.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    Ukranian and Russian railway gauge are the same, 1520mm. It is EU that is different with 1435mm.
    - dreamcompiler 4y ago
      I read an article early in the war that specifically stated the opposite, but apparently it was wrong and now of course I can't find it. You're correct.
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  dreamcompiler wrote: “Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference.” There is no gauge difference between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, even some (small) parts of Polish railways use Russian gauge - remnant of the times when Soviet raw materials were delivered in bulk to Polish metallurgic plants.
rok3 4y ago
> It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. Just a quick point of clarification for anyone trying to look this up. The correct term is "gauge" (distance between the rails) instead of "wheelbase" (distance between front and rear wheels). Most European countries use tracks with a gauge of 1,435mm but Ukraine uses 1,520mm.