Russia has begun test grain shipments through Murmansk amid attacks on ships in the Black Sea

As the British newspaper Financial Times writes, grain for buyers from North Africa will be sent in test mode. To do this, the terminal has been reconfigured with facilities that were usually used to handle fertilizers.

Russian suppliers are looking for alternative routes amid systematic strikes by Ukrainian drones in southern Russia. The material says that these attacks have effectively paralyzed exports through the Black Sea and pushed freight rates in the south to more than double.

Before the Murmansk shipment, exporters had already begun moving grain through Baltic Sea ports. Some companies are also sending ships from the Sea of Azov up the Don so they can reach the Caspian Sea and buyers in Iran.

Others are using special containers and transporting grain by rail to terminals that do not have standard loading equipment. The influx of ships to the north has overloaded the railways, and trains have begun to accumulate at the terminals.

Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union, estimated that by the end of the year Baltic terminals will be able to offset no more than half of the export volumes lost in the Black and Azov seas. The new routes have also increased producers' logistics costs, causing profits for some companies to fall sharply.

According to Financial Times, farmers in the southern regions, who traditionally earned high profits in the market, are now making less than agricultural producers from the Volga region and Central Russia. Experts do not rule out that some farmers may no longer have the funds for winter crops.

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