Ukraine’s Attacks on Russian Shipping via Black Sea Creating Cascading Problems for Moscow

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 1 – Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships on the Black Sea have forced Moscow to reroute its exports of grain eastward to the Caspian and northward to the Baltic and Arctic seas, an exercise that has highlighted serious bottlenecks in both places that are restricting the export of Russian grain.

            Not only has the redirection of grain shipments overloaded Russian railroads and the capacity of the Volga-Don canal to carry cargo in these new directions, but it has highlighted the fact that most of the ports Moscow wants to use as alternatives lack the onloading equipment needed to function (istories.media/news/2026/11/01/rossiya-perevozit-zerno-cherez-arktiku-i-kaspiiskoe-more-iz-za-obstrelov-v-chernom-more/).

            As a result, Russian shipping companies say, these routes will not be able to compensate for much of the export volume lost with the closure of the Black Sea routes, where shipping has declined and the costs of using what remains have risen dramatically, another example of the ways in which Ukraine has achieved more against Russia than many think.

Death of Aral Sea has Left ‘a Toxic Desert’ Behind

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 1 – The death of the Aral Sea has created “a toxic desert” from which more than 100 million tons of dust are spreading to neighboring countries and causing illness and death, according to the United Nations body responsible for tracking desertification and responding to this threat.

            Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are seeking to remedy the situation by planting trees to hold the former seabed in place, and the other Central Asian countries have started monitoring programs. But these efforts have done remarkably little to reduce the dust, much of it extremely toxic, from spreading with the winds (centrasia.org/news.php?st=1793469240).

            The spread of this dust has not only harmed people living nearby but also fallen on glaciers in the mountains of the region and reduced their reflection of the light and heat of the sun. As a result, the glaciers are melting more rapidly, exacerbating the shortages of water that the original death of the Aral signaled in the first place.

            The impact of this echo of the death of the Aral is important both in its own right given the problems it is creating for the Central Asian region and for what it means elsewhere around the world where lakes and seas are drying up. Soon, others, like the Caspian, will also be the source of such dust flows and thus creating similar or even larger problems than the Aral has.