Rail transports are intended to replace shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, Spain’s transport ministry said, as cited by Polish state news agency PAP.
The Spanish transport ministry noted that Russia had blockaded the Black Sea ports after invading Ukraine in February, before a UN-backed deal brokered by Turkey lifted Moscow’s naval blockade, releasing millions of tonnes of blocked grain to help prevent a global food crisis.
600 tonnes of Ukrainian maize to reach Spain via Poland
Under the Spanish project, a freight train “consisting of 25 containers, each measuring 40 foot (12 metres)” left Madrid late on Tuesday for the Polish town of Chełm near the Ukrainian border, the Spanish transport ministry said, as quoted by thelocal.se website.
The train is set to travel 2,400 kilometres to Chełm, where it will collect 600 tonnes of grain and return to Barcelona in early September, according to thelocal.es.
“This is a pilot project … to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of transporting grain via the railway network crossing Europe from Łódź in Poland to Barcelona,” the Spanish transport ministry said in a statement, as cited by thelocal.es.
With the recent reopening of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, the Spanish project will also help “analyse the capacity of land transport to support maritime routes,” the ministry added, according thelocal.es.
Thursday is day 169 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, thelocal.es