If Kyiv Loses Odesa, Ukraine will Be Landlocked and be Far Easier for Moscow to Dominate, UNCTAD Report Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – An UNCTAD report suggesting that countries which lack direct access to the world’s oceans spend 50 percent more on transportation costs for exports than do those who have such ports, have lower economic growth, and more likely to be dominated by outside powers should be required reading for those tracking Moscow’s moves in Ukraine.

            That depressed their prospects for development and puts them at risk of being dominated by outside powers, the agency says in a report released following a conference of 32 landlocked states in Turkmenistan earlier this month, countries which amount to more than seven percent of the world’s population but only 1.2 percent of trade (realtribune.ru/transportnye-rashody-u-stran-bez-vyhoda-k-morju-na-50-vyshe-mirovogo-urovnya-oon/).

            This reality lies behind an important part of Russia’s strategy in Ukraine, one that seeks to deny Kyiv Odesa, a port on the Black Sea, and thus leave that country landlocked, impoverished and more subject to Russian influence and control than would be the case otherwise (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/12/russia-doesnt-want-or-need-all-of.html).

            Those tracking the war in Ukraine should keep that in mind rather than just focusing on the battlelines in the Donbass, which may matter more if Russia advances toward Kyiv but will matter less than Russia’s moves to the southwest toward Odesa should the war end and Ukraine lose its most important port.