The most immediate and worrying supply chain issue as a result of the war in Ukraine is around food supply.
Coupled with a lack of rainfall in other major grain producing areas of the world such as the American Midwest and India, the looming problems caused by Ukraine’s inability to trade normally and safely through its Black Sea ports will hit countries across the world.
The sheer logistical complexity of the world’s trading system is normally hidden from us, or beneath our notice as it smoothly does its thing in the distant background. With Russia’s invasion now apparently aiming at a “southern corridor” of land, including those trading ports, and with different train track gauges across Europe (including north from Ukraine to Baltic ports) making movement of goods by freight a fraught endeavour even from the safer parts of Ukraine, small parts of that complex logistical jigsaw swim into view.
