Russia Zeroes Out Grain Export Duties as Black Sea Attacks Choke Shipping
10 September 2026, Moscow, Russia: Russia has eliminated export duties on wheat, corn and barley for the rest of 2026, a move Moscow says is meant to support exporters after repeated Ukrainian strikes on Black Sea port infrastructure left grain shippers struggling to move the new harvest out of the country. The change took effect September 1 and was reported by Russian trade outlets on September 2, though as of this week it had reportedly still not been formally published in Russia’s official gazette, an unusual gap that traders are watching closely.
Before the change, Russia charged a duty of 787.5 rubles per tonne on wheat exports and 406.5 rubles per tonne on corn; barley duties are also being zeroed out. Duties on sunflower oil, a major Indian import, remain unchanged at 7,748 rubles per tonne. Industry sources cited by Agroexpert and the trade platform UkrAgroConsult say the decision reflects ample domestic supply colliding with a hard shipping constraint: the Azov-Black Sea basin, which used to handle more than five million tonnes of grain exports a month, now has sharply reduced usable capacity.
Port strikes behind the squeeze
The capacity problem traces back to a series of Ukrainian drone and naval strikes on Russian Black Sea export terminals through July and August. An August 12 attack on grain terminals at the port of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest Black Sea export hub, killed three people and knocked two terminals out of operation, according to reports from the Moscow Times and Al Jazeera at the time. Ukrainian forces have also targeted vessels and naval assets in the wider Black Sea theatre, pushing up marine insurance costs and prompting some shipowners to avoid Russian ports altogether. Global wheat futures spiked on the attack headlines in mid-August before easing as traders digested the scale of the disruption.
Removing the export duty is unlikely to fully offset the shipping bottleneck. Trade analysts quoted by UkrAgroConsult expect the policy to translate into modestly higher farmgate prices for Russian growers, while FOB export prices could soften by three to four dollars a tonne. Alternative routes through the Baltic Sea and other terminals are expected to absorb only a few hundred thousand additional tonnes a month, far short of what the Azov-Black Sea basin normally handles. With less grain able to leave the country, analysts also expect downward pressure on Russia’s domestic grain and oilseed prices as more of the harvest backs up into local markets.
Why the world is watching
Russia has ranked as the world’s largest wheat exporter for most of the past decade, supplying roughly a fifth of global wheat shipments in a typical year, so any disruption to its export flow reverberates through international grain markets. Egypt, Turkey and several other large wheat importers rely heavily on Russian supply, and volatility in Black Sea shipping has repeatedly moved global wheat and corn benchmarks over the past month. The duty suspension is Moscow’s attempt to keep exporters solvent and competitive even as the physical route to market narrows, but it does not resolve the underlying security risk that continues to unsettle freight and insurance markets.
The episode is also feeding into broader global food-price anxiety. Black Sea logistics uncertainty was one of the factors the UN Food and Agriculture Organization cited this month in explaining a fresh rise in its global food price index, alongside adverse European weather and wider geopolitical tensions.
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