Peter Frankopan
Russia’s ability to export grain and fertiliser has remained one of its few sources of economic strength and international leverage since its invasion of Ukraine. Unlike hydrocarbons, these exports have been spared Western sanctions, providing the Kremlin with critical revenue and soft power reach. But an increasingly erratic climate is now threatening this advantage. Russia’s bad 2025 harvest is more than a weather event: it reveals the structural fragility of Russia’s war economy and the growing risks to a system built on fiscal buffers and fossil fuels.
Strength in declineDuring the Cold War, the Soviet Union could not feed itself. It depended on grain imports, primarily from the United States. This gave Washington a lever of geopolitical influence during the era of detente by offering access to food on the condition of restraint in foreign policy.
A Soviet weakness became a Russian strength. The post-Soviet transition to private land ownership and heavy state investment transformed Russia into an agricultural powerhouse. This gave it the confidence to ban Western food imports in 2014 in retaliation against sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Crimea and parts of Donbas. By 2016, Russia had become the world’s largest exporter of wheat and a leading exporter of fertiliser. These exports brought not just foreign currency, but influence – especially among buyers in Africa and the Middle East.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western sanctions have sought to isolate the Russian economy. These have largely exempted agricultural exports to protect global food security, particularly in developing countries. For the Kremlin, this omission has become a secure stream of foreign earnings and influence that have helped stabilise the economy and support the war effort. But nature, indifferent to political constraints, may now be doing what Western policymakers have declined to do.
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