Blockade Runners

Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine is blockading the port of Odessa from which much of Ukraine's grain and cooking oil flows to Africa and Asia. Put bluntly, by this action Russia will cause mass starvation among the poorest people in the world. The Russian blockade is, in essence, a war crime.

In order to free up Ukrainian grain the United States along with NATO should send a fleet into the Black Sea to break the blockade and establish a humanitarian assistance corridor. The legal justification for this action would be to enforce the long-established notion of freedom of the seas.,

Of course, the Russians might not sit idly by and fire on the U.S. led naval force. Let them because it will prove to the world that Russia wants mass starvation in a cynical rerun the Russian enforced starvation of Ukraine in the early 1930's. My guess is that Russia will back down.

However, in order to send warships into the Black Sea, under the 1936 Montreux Convention Turkish permission is required to enter the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits. Yet again Turkey is in the middle of the Ukraine War, most recently with its bid to hold up NATO membership to Sweden and Finland. In this case President Erdogan would likely support a NATO humanitarian mission, even if it risks a major altercation with Russia. Otherwise, he would be viewed as a co-conspirator with Russia in starving the world.