I'm John Batser with Antonio Calabashana of Geopolitical Futures, writing it, the Jamestown

Foundation about the cutoff of grain and other foodstuffs from the Black Sea Basin initiated

by Russia making threats against the Ukrainian ports and firing missiles and drones at the

Ukrainian ports and declaring that any military, any civilian craft leaving the Ukrainian

ports will be regarded as carrying military cargo and will be attacked.

That's what Russia says.

Ukraine says then, therefore, any Russian warship or a Russian cargo ship leaving or entering

will be regarded as military and will be attacked.

So the warring sides are now moving into the Black Sea.

In the meantime, the price of wheat and other foodstuffs are climbing quickly in Europe

and in the United States.

So we come now to the question of what is to be done.

Antonio, you are in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.

Romania is at the frontier of this war has been for more than a year.

You have a report, you have a port, Castanza, which is capable of carrying some of the load

that is trucked out of Ukraine.

Is it adequate to the demands and what are the alternatives to get that grain to market?

Well, I would like to say it is, but there are many problems to that.

So part of it is the fact that we have a lot of grains in the silos adjacent to the port

as it happens in Odessa for the matter of fact.

So there is a lot of grain from last year that is still not into the market.

And that is because the port has been very much busy.

...