Barefoot, Anton Moïsseïev waits in the cabin of his truck loaded with wheat, parked near a café on the side of a road in the Odessa region, in the south of Ukraine.
“Today is my third day. I don’t know how long it will take,” worries the 41-year-old driver who arrived from the Kirovograd region (center) to deliver his load.
He is waiting with hundreds of other truck drivers transporting cereals to the port of Izmail (south-east), on the Danube, which has become the main exit route for Ukrainian agricultural products.
Previously, Ukraine exported through the Black Sea on large ships. But Russia ended on July 17 an agreement, under the aegis of the UN and Turkey, which had allowed the export of 33 million tons of Ukrainian cereals, despite the Russian invasion.
Moscow forces then repeatedly struck Ukrainian Black Sea port infrastructure, particularly in Odessa.
“That’s why everyone comes here. From all over Ukraine, practically,” said Sergiï Gretsyk, another 36-year-old trucker from the Vinnytsia region (west).
Large volumes of cereals are now sent to small river ports in the Odessa region, bordering Romania. Once in little demand, Reni and Izmail are now critically important to the world’s food supply, so they struggle to absorb all the cargo, causing a truck bottleneck.
“The ports of Reni and Izmaïl cannot manage this”, they are “drops in the ocean” compared to those of the Black Sea, estimates the driver Anton Moïsseïev. “There is a lot of grain but we can’t get it out of Ukraine,” he says.
These ports have also become targets: on July 24, that of Reni was attacked by Russia using drones.
“The damage is quite significant but it has not completely stopped the (operation of) the port,” regional army spokeswoman Natalia Goumeniouk told AFP.
All the truckers interviewed by AFP last week were heading for the port of Izmail. Because in Reni, “people say they will not accept us”, explains Serguiï Gretsyk.
“Things got worse after the bombardment” of this port, confirms Anton Moïsseïev.
“One strike and it’s all over, we sit back and wait again,” he said in despair.
In Izmail, at least four cargo ships were moored in the port or nearby last week, facing Romania located on the other side of the wide green river, AFP journalists noted.
The ships were flying Liberian, Slovak or other flags.
Trucks that had managed to reach the port, however, had to continue to wait, due to a lack of infrastructure capable of loading the cereals sheltered from bad weather, according to drivers.
On the road to the port, the birds take advantage of this by pecking at grains of wheat and corn that have fallen from lorries.
The city – 70,000 inhabitants before the war – seems to benefit somewhat from this recent grain boom.
On the main avenue, where Ukrainian flags are flying, the sidewalks look new and well maintained. Many restaurants and cafes are open and a yacht club is under construction.
Due to its strategic position, Izmail changed hands several times.
A stone mosque on the banks of the river recalls the Turkish domination in the 16th century.
The two-lane road going to Odessa crosses fields of corn, sunflowers and vineyards. It also passes briefly through neighboring Moldova.
Trucks form long lines on either side of the road and in tarmacked areas at the edge of fields, waiting their turn to unload.
Some tarpaulins display the names of transport companies from Poland, France, Germany or the Czech Republic, but the registrations are Ukrainian.
Igor Skrypnyk, a 47-year-old driver, said he had been waiting for eight days. “Our ship hasn’t entered the port yet. We don’t know why.”
According to him, “truck drivers quit, they no longer want to work” under these conditions.
01/08/2023 15:46:37 – Izmail (Ukraine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
