The Baltic Sea port has silos to store plenty of grain, railway lines to transport it there from Ukraine, where it has been trapped by the war, and a deep harbor ready for ships that can take it to Egypt, Yemen and other countries in desperate need of food.
"Starvation is near, and we have everything that is needed to provide part of a solution,” said Algis Latakis, the director general of Klaipeda Port on Lithuania’s Baltic coast, insisting that his facility can help the world avert a food catastrophe by getting out the vast mountains of grain now stranded in Ukraine.
But, Latakis conceded, there is one big problem: Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus — who in February let Russian troops pour into Ukraine from his territory. Belarus controls the railway lines offering the most direct, cheapest and fastest route for large volumes of grain out of Ukraine to Klaipeda and other Baltic ports.
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