Russian embassy in Yemen says grain exports fell fourfold in September
Yemen Herald News 
MOSCOW, Russia — The Russian Embassy in Yemen said grain exports from Russia fell fourfold in September from a year earlier, warning of risks to supplies for import-dependent countries.
The embassy issued the statement on Oct. 1.
It cited data from the Russian Grain Union.
Wheat exports fell 3.7 times against September 2025, according to the figures the embassy gave.
Barley exports fell 9.9 times and corn exports 3.3 times, it said.
Russian wheat shipments to Yemen fell 1.6 times, the embassy said.
It attributed the decline to disrupted navigation and to attacks on vessels in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
The embassy said more than 200 civilian ships had been attacked since the start of the year, and blamed Ukraine.
That figure rests on the embassy’s statement alone. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of it.
The embassy warned that continued disruption could raise freight costs and reduce the grain available on world markets.
Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter.
The scale of the fall has been reported outside Russian official channels.
Trade press reported in mid-September that Russian wheat exports had dropped roughly fourfold, citing fewer buyers and disruption at ports.
Russian grain exports fell 37 percent in July after disruption in the Black Sea, according to trade reporting at the time.
The Moscow Times reported in August that Ukrainian strikes had halted most Russian grain exports through the Black Sea.
Bloomberg reported on Sept. 2 that Russia had suspended its grain export duty through the end of 2026 as Black Sea shipments stalled.
Ukrainian military intelligence has said Russian wheat exports in September were on course for their lowest monthly volume since 2010.
The consultancy SovEcon cut its forecast for Russian wheat exports in the 2026/27 marketing year to 36.7 million tonnes, from 41.4 million tonnes.
The revised figure is about 20 percent below the 46 million tonnes shipped in the previous season.
SovEcon said shipping capacity on the Black and Azov seas was restricted and that grain terminals at Novorossiysk and Tuapse were operating at reduced levels.
It said Russian exporters no longer expected shipments through those waters to return to normal before 2027.
Rail shipments are running at about 1 million tonnes a month, and transshipment through the Baltic could rise by 60 percent to 0.4 million tonnes, SovEcon said.
Neither route can replace the lost Black Sea capacity, according to the consultancy.
The Moscow Times reported in August that Russian wheat exports were heading for a decade low that month.
Russian wheat export prices reached three-year highs in September, trade press reported.
Russian wheat shipments began the 2026/27 season at about half the pace of the previous year, according to trade analysts.
Independent reporting attributes the disruption at ports to Ukrainian strikes on Black Sea port infrastructure.
The embassy’s statement described the cause as attacks on civilian shipping.
Yemen buys most of its food abroad.
Grain accounts for the bulk of those imported calories, according to the institute.
The institute has linked disruption in global grain markets since the war in Ukraine to Yemen’s food crisis.
In 2020, 84 percent of the food calories consumed in Yemen were imported, most of them grain, according to research published by the International Food Policy Research Institute.
The institute found that Yemen took 44 percent of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in 2021, with 24 percent from Russia and 20 percent from Ukraine.
The Hayel Saeed Anam Group handles close to all of Yemen’s imported wheat, according to the same research.
Grain reaches the north of the country through Hodeidah and As-Salif on the Red Sea, and the south through Aden.
Hodeidah is held by the Houthis. Aden is held by the internationally recognised government.
That division means northern and southern Yemen draw imported grain through separate supply routes.
The World Food Programme has said 74 percent of Yemeni households cannot meet their basic food needs.
Matthew Hollingworth of the programme said the effect of the latest flare-up in fighting threatened to be “absolutely devastating”.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its March plan that more than 22 million people in Yemen needed assistance.
It put the number of acutely food insecure people at 18.3 million.
That plan covers the whole of 2026.
It said more than 2.2 million children under five were acutely malnourished, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition.
The office recorded 5.2 million internally displaced people and sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of them.
Fighting in Taiz governorate has added to that caseload.
UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg said on Thursday that he was alarmed by developments in Taiz, where fighting had intensified.
His statement cited figures showing nearly 147,000 people displaced across Yemen between Sept. 1 and Sept. 18.
The International Organization for Migration has since put the figure at more than 149,000 people, drawn mostly from Taiz and Lahj governorates.
Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mokha last month.
Mokha sits on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
The embassy did not say how much Russian grain Yemen had bought this year in volume terms.
It gave no forecast for October.
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