18 Wednesday May 25 2022 | the times
News
Lithuania has received its first rail
delivery of grain from Ukraine for
onward shipment as Europe searches
for ways to unlock the 20 million ton-
nes of wheat exports trapped by
Russia’s blockade of the Black Sea.
Kyiv has been stepping up efforts to
ship via the Romanian Black Sea port of
Constanta. But as of the middle of this
month, only about 240,000 tonnes of
grain — 1 per cent of the total volume —
had been shipped from there.
Rerouting grain to Romania involves
transport by rail to ports on the Danube
and loading cargo onto barges for ship-
ping towards Constanta, making the
process complex and costly.
This month Marius Skuodis, the
Lithuanian transport minister, said that
negotiations were under way on a “hu-
manitarian corridor” to take the grain
to the Baltic by way of Belarus, meaning
it could make the entire journey on
Soviet-gauge railways.
However, if the 20 million tonnes of
grain are to be exported from Ukraine
before they go rotten, rail cannot be the
only option.
In London this week, Gabrielius
Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minis-
ter, proposed a naval escort to protect
the grain ships as they headed through
the Black Sea and past Russian war-
ships. The proposal was backed by Liz
Truss, the foreign secretary.
The Ukrainian ambassador to
London said that negotiations had be-
gun with Britain about a possible es-
cort. He suggested that Ukraine was
looking at removing mines from the
area to allow such a move, adding:
“I believe that something can be done
here.”HMS Prince of Wales departed fromNews War in Ukraine
Blockaded grain arrives
by rail at Lithuania port
Tom Ball LTG, Lithuania’s state-owned rail-
way company, said that the delivery,
which came through Poland, had ar-
rived at the port of Klaipeda yesterday.
The port expects to receive a train a
day from Ukraine, each with up to 1,
tonnes of grain and other produce.
The rail company said it had been de-
veloping alternative freight corridors
through Poland since before the war.
Trains from Ukraine enter Poland
through one of the two or three cross-
ings, and travel to Lithuania via the
Trakiszki-Mockava border point.
The final destination of the shipment
is unknown. However, the majority ofUkraine’s wheat exports are sent to the
Middle East and north Africa. Egypt,
Indonesia and Pakistan account for
nearly half of all exports.
Shipping to the Middle East and
north Africa will take roughly three
times longer via Lithuania. The trip
from Odesa to the Suez canal takes five
days on average.
The route is not without its draw-
backs, but was the best of several bad
options, according to David Laborde,
senior fellow at the International Food
Policy Research Institute in Washing-
ton. Until now, Ukraine has been forced
to send shipments across its western
border, relying on small Danube river
ports.
In contrast, Lithuania, which has in
recent years become a big exporter for
landlocked countries in eastern
Europe, has the infrastructure and
capacity to deal with large quantities of
grain, Laborde said.
“The options are limited. Either you
go south to Bulgarian and Romanianports on the Black Sea, or you go north
through Lithuania and the Baltic Sea,”
Laborde told The Times.
“Bulgaria and Romania do not have
the same level of infrastructure as Lith-
uania. Added to that, southwest
Ukraine is more at risk from Russian
attacks. I would predict that Lithuania
will become the main exporter of
Ukrainian grain because of this.”
Nevertheless, there are difficulties in
transporting grain to Lithuania via rail.
Chief among them is the difference in
width between Ukrainian railway
tracks and most of Europe’s, including
Poland’s. The Russian empire, and later
the Soviet Union, built rail tracks to a
width of 1,520mm — compared with
1,435mm elsewhere — to carry heavier
loads and hamstring potential invaders
by preventing them from using their
own rolling stock on occupied railways.
Ukraine still uses Russian track
gauge, as do other former Soviet states,
including Lithuania. In order to reach
Klaipeda, a grain shipment will need to
be transhipped twice, first at the Polish
border, from Russian gauge to standard
gauge, and then back again onto Rus-
sian gauge at the Lithuanian border.
The process is time-consuming and
transhipment facilities at the borders
are scarce. The dozen or so railway bor-
der crossings capable of transferring
grain have been operating at their lim-
its, especially in the case of the biggest
of these facilities, at Izov.RUSSIAAUSTRIAROMANIAPOLANDBELARUS250 milesKlaipedaGdanskGiurgiulestiConstantaGdyniaCZECH
REPGGGrain supply routes by rail
1,435mm standard gauge network
1,520mm gauge
1,524mm gauge(Being
repaired
now)(theoretical)(Limited
capacity)LITHUANIAUKRAINE