After invasion, famine

Geopolitical pundits fool themselves by thinking that President Putin wants simply to return to challenge Nato or return to the Soviet Union. This is a much older story. Russian imperialists have had utopian designs on the Ukrainian plains since at least the days of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible. In 1768, Catherine the Great fulfilled the Russian dream by seizing Ukraine’s goldilocks zone of abundant fresh water, flat land, fertile soil, and the dirt roads that led to the Black Sea. This is the same land that fed the Greek city-states, the Roman and Byzantine empires, and, in the 18th century, the grain-guzzling cities of Europe: Liverpool, London, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. And it was Catherine who planned the construction of Odessa, the deepwater port that carries much of Ukraine’s grain to world markets today.

Last year Russia and Ukraine together accounted for almost 30 per cent of global wheat exports, nearly all of which passed south through the Black Sea.