The summit of EU leaders in Brussels will consider the problem of increasing hunger in countries that depend on the export of products from Ukraine.
The EU is ready to mobilize all possible resources to facilitate the export of grain that is idle in the elevators and ports of Ukraine. The possibility of launching a sea mission to escort cargo ships from Ukraine through the mined Black Sea, where Russian ships and submarines are located, is also being discussed.
In the draft conclusion of the summit, the EU "strongly condemns the destruction and misappropriation of Ukraine's agricultural products by Russia." The summit will ask Moscow to "lift the blockade of Ukrainian ports and allow the export of food products, including from Odessa."
Brussels is also considering launching a naval mission to guarantee grain export from Odessa.
The publication noted that the naval operation to remove Ukrainian grain is fraught with an excessive risk of possible military clashes with the Russian Navy.
A debate about the mission is inevitable, a source told El Pais. The EU now has 18 operational missions of this type worldwide, some of them naval, such as enforcing an arms embargo on Libya in the Mediterranean or fighting piracy in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia.
However, all interviewed sources admit that the operation in the Black Sea is a risk for European forces.
It should be noted that the EU also wants to show countries facing famine that the lack of grain is not the result of European sanctions, as Russian propaganda claims, but of the Russian armed blockade of Ukrainian ports.