Poland will not lift its ban on Ukrainian agricultural imports for now, Deputy Agriculture Minister Adam Nowak announced in Brussels, Polskie Radio reported. The refusal keeps one of three national embargoes in place as the new EU-Ukraine trade agreement approaches. For Kyiv, access to European markets remains a strategic source of wartime export revenue.

Warsaw sees no way to move first

Warsaw justifies the ban by the need to protect their farmers' interests. Nowak stated:

"We see no possibility of lifting this ban unilaterally. It would deal a blow to the Polish food market and thus bring losses for consumers. Ukraine received access to European markets without complying with all the standards, while Polish farmers are obliged to meet them. This is the only way to stabilize the situation on the Polish market," he claimed. 

The Deputy Minister called the current moment especially difficult ahead of the harvest. Grain prices remain very low, he claimed, while farmers struggle to find storage.

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Three embargoes against one trade deal

The new trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine takes effect from November, according to Polskie Radio. In theory, all unilateral trade restrictions must then disappear. Poland, however, keeps its own embargo, and Slovakia and Hungary do the same. 

For Ukraine, European market access carries strategic weight, not just economic value. The agrarian sector depends heavily on exports, and foreign-currency revenue from agricultural deliveries grew by more than 9% in the first months of 2026. Ukraine produces far more than its internal market can absorb. Export restrictions, therefore, hit the sector's stability directly, along with the foreign-currency inflows the state budget relies on.

• In 2023–2024, Polish farmers and truckers repeatedly blocked border crossings in both directions, at times spilling Ukrainian grain from trucks and railcars.

Russia can no longer blockade Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, so it is bombing them instead—and the campaign now carries both a price and a deadline.

Intensifying strikes on the Odesa ports could cut Ukraine’s monthly grain exports by as much as a third. That drains the wartime budget of its single largest source of hard currency and threatens a supply line that feeds buyers across Africa and the Middle East.

Damaged terminals could push monthly shipments from the Odesa ports—Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi—down to about four million tons, from six, a one-third cut. At current wheat prices, the lost volume is worth nearly $900 million a month in foreign earnings, according to Deputy Economy Minister Taras Vysotskyi’s estimate.

The drop would fall on grain that has already backed up: Ukraine is heading into July with carryover stocks of around 9 million tons of corn and wheat, near the top of recent years.

July is the danger window

Russia is likely to step up strikes on the Odesa ports in July and August, when about 30% of the new crop moves to the docks, Growex owner Bohdan Lukiyanchuk told LIGA.net.

Heavier attacks in that window, he said, could push Ukrainian grain off global markets, to Russia’s gain.

Terminals out of money, workers in shelters

Private terminal operators have lost an estimated $1.5 billion since the invasion and cannot fund the repairs alone, UAC deputy head Denys Marchuk told Reuters. The disruption is physical and daily. “There are shifts when the terminal works for one hour and then everyone spends 11 hours in shelters,” said Arsen Muradian of Novotech-Terminal in Odesa.

He counted 2,600 air-raid alerts in the city since the war began. Ukraine has shipped 34.9 million tons of grain so far this season, down from 39.5 million a year earlier.

The bombing is the second phase of a longer campaign. Before the invasion, Ukraine shipped more than 60 million tons of grain a year through its Black Sea ports, about a tenth of global supply; within days of February 2022, the Russian navy blockaded them, and exports fell to almost nothing.

Ukraine clawed the trade back—first through the UN-brokered grain deal, then, after Russia walked out of it in 2023, through a corridor Ukraine opened itself once naval drones drove the Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol. By 2025, the sea route again carried about 92% of grain and oilseed exports, near pre-war levels. Those are the ports Russia is now bombing.

Russia hit Ukrainian ports 90 times in 2025 alone. The World Bank now puts Ukraine’s transport-sector rebuild at more than $96 billion, a bill it ties to intensified attacks on rail and ports.