The impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on grain and oilseed trade

Abstract

This paper provides an ex‐post impact assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on international grain and oilseed trade. We use a commodity‐level empirical model to assess the counterfactual trade effects and evaluate the region‐specific global trade reallocation effects. We find that grain and oilseed imports from Ukraine were 78.2% below the counterfactual between February and July 2022. The Russia–Ukraine war caused substantial trade diversion, mainly benefiting countries in North America and Europe. The adjustment of global grain and oilseed trade operates primarily through price adjustments, with considerable heterogeneity across commodity groups. Our ex‐ante analysis demonstrates that the Ukraine–Russia war had substantial trade implications for the directly involved countries but only limited ones for the global grain and oilseed markets in terms of traded quantity.