Ukraine could run out of room to store 8mn-11mn tonnes of its own grain by November, with the ports shut and the new crop still coming in as this year’s harvest gets underway in earnest.

"At the current limited pace of exports, we could reach a point in November where there is a shortfall in domestic storage capacity. This shortfall could range from 8 to 11mn tonnes," agrarian policy and food minister Taras Vysotsky told reporters on August 14, Interfax-Ukraine reported.

The range reflects how hard the corn harvest is to forecast, Vysotsky said, adding that the ministry is planning for a maximum yield.

This is the blockade's second-order effect, and the more damaging one. A country that cannot export loses revenue; a country that cannot store loses the crop itself. Grain left in the open degrades within weeks, and once storage is full the elevators stop taking deliveries - which means farmers stop harvesting, or harvest into the ground.

The fix Kyiv is reaching for is deliberately crude: grain storage bags, laid out in fields, each holding up to 250 tonnes. Ukraine has asked international partners to fund them and has about $10mn confirmed, with a further $25mn being finalised with the World Bank.

"That's 6mn tonnes or more," Vysotsky said, adding that with the funding counted in, Ukraine expects to cover the critical situation and secure enough capacity.

Even on the minister's own arithmetic that leaves a gap of up to 5mn tonnes, and it depends on money that has not all arrived.

The exports of grain volumes are already tanking. Ukraine shipped 590,000 tonnes of grain between August 1 and 12 - about 30% of what it needs to move Interfax Ukraine reported, on the ministry's own measure - after the sea corridor halted in late July. Exports are down 76% year on year so far this month, and roughly 90% of Ukraine's agricultural exports normally leave through the Black Sea.

Kyiv has already cut its 2026/27 grain export forecast to 38mn-40mn tonnes from 43mn, with the National Bank of Ukraine putting lost export revenue at more than $2bn since July 23. The workaround being negotiated - a discounted rail corridor through Moldova to Constanta - might carry 4.5mn tonnes a year, roughly a tenth of normal volumes.

As the situation deteriorates, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is starting to sound increasingly desperate. Kyiv put a truce on the table this week, suggesting the ports be reopened to allow both Russia and Ukraine to export their grain. Ukraine has offered Russia a mutual halt to attacks on civilian ships and port infrastructure in the Black Sea, passing the proposal through an unnamed third country, Reuters reported on August 13. Russian deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko said Moscow had received no formal proposal and has yet to comment.

In the meantime, in an effort to win some leverage over the Kremlin, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has ramped up its own attacks on Russia’s grain export infrastructure. A coordinated strike on Novorossiysk on August 12 forced all three of the port's grain terminals to suspend operations. Zelenskiy said the attack combined 15 domestically produced missile, aerial-drone and naval-drone systems.

Kyiv paused attacks on tankers carrying Kazakh crude through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium after a request from US Vice President JD Vance, and reaffirmed it would avoid non-sanctioned foreign vessels. But Russian vessels remain fair game. Russia can keep Ukraine's ports closed and watch its grain rot in bags in a field - but only for as long as it is willing to have its own terminals closed in return, at the peak of its own record harvest.