Originally posted by zraver
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You can of course differentiate between the type of merchant vessels you grant access to. Bulk carriers are not container ships or oil tankers after all. But on top of that there's no good reason to sanction Russian grain exports. True, they do contribute to Russia's economy but grains as a % contribute far less to GD that oil and gas do.
That said Putin is in very good position to do significant damage to the world's grain exports and induce mass famine by arbitrarily restricting grain exports much as he done with gas exports to Poland etc (and possibly oil in future). And even if the nations most impacted by those embargo's aren't traditionally viewed as being part of the Western power block the potential flow-on effects of such a ban are enormous. And horrifying. He definitely has some potential to use grain exports for leverage should the war continue to go badly for Russia. And lets face it absent WMDs etc that is the most likely outcome. So I wouldn't put it past him to try and weaponize grain production.
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