While some European leaders steadfastly express their willingness to put boots on the ground in Ukraine if a ceasefire or peace agreement can be achieved, US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order assigning the US Department of Defense an additional name: “The Department of War.” This hardly ties in with his previously professed love of peace.
Ukrainians may be growing tired of following the erratic policy decisions emanating from the White House. But follow them we must, as we try to identify which developments could have serious consequences for us.
Recently, an unusual piece of news from across the Atlantic claimed our attention – for the first time in 32 years, the US purchased from Russia a huge batch of fresh chicken eggs worth almost half a million dollars.
While no incident of trade with a terrorist state can be viewed as entirely innocent, one aspect of this commerce story has catapulted eggs into the center of Ukrainian-US relations with military implications. It is the question of logistics.
How are these eggs being transported to the US? There have been no American cargo planes in Russian airspace for a long time, and Russian cargo planes have not crossed the Atlantic Ocean in recent years. This means that the eggs will travel to the US by sea.
They will most likely be delivered to Russian ports on cargo trains, and to railway warehouses on trucks. That is to say, this commercial operation will involve a broad swathe of Russia’s transport infrastructure, all of which constitutes a legitimate target for Ukrainian long-range missiles and drones.
The last thing Ukraine wants is to aggravate already difficult Ukrainian-US relations by jeopardizing the delivery of eggs to the US. President Trump has claimed success in the battle against egg shortages caused by Avion Flu, which spread panic across the US during the winter and spring of this year. Maintaining a stable supply of eggs remains important in upholding this success. Therefore, it would be helpful if the US informed Ukraine about its commercial interests in Russia and their geolocations. This is unlikely to happen. Has the US ever informed Ukraine about the delivery routes of mineral fertilizers that the US continues to buy from Russia?
In the first six months of this year, the US has purchased Russian mineral fertilizers to the tune of $927 million, which is nearly a two-fold increase on the same period last year. The total purchase of Russian fertilizers for 2024 was worth $1 billion.
Apart from eggs and fertilizers, the US this year imported from Russia $755 million worth of uranium and plutonium. Another significant import is Palladium, which the US badly needs for the production of catalytic converters for cars. The US imports many other products from Russia besides this.
By the way, all the Russian chemical plants that produce fertilizers are located in the strike zone of Ukrainian missiles and drones. These same chemical plants are capable of producing explosives for the Russian army and, quite possibly, do actually produce explosives.
Fertilizers produced for export to the US and other countries are loaded onto ships in Russian ports on the Black Sea (in Tuapse), in the Baltic (in Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg), as well as in Russian Arctic ports. Ukrainian missiles can reach most of these ports, but they do not. Perhaps, after all, Ukraine’s military leadership is aware of where US interests are located in Russia and treats them very carefully.
In contrast, the recent shelling of the American Flex plant in Transcarpathia by Russian missiles showed that Russia does not care at all about US economic interests in Ukraine.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.