russia to crimea, and the end of a critical food security agreement. first, the international reaction to russia s pulling out of an international grain deal has been widespread and swift. the black sea grain deal let ukraine ship its grain by sea, despite moscow s naval blockaide. the kremlin s spokesman says the agreement has been halted until russia s demands are met. but ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy remains defiant, saying his ships will sail without russian approval. it could have serious consequences, as we ve seen in the past. that s because ukraine is one of the world s largest exporters of key crops, including sunflower, maize, wheat and barley. when russia invaded ukraine in february of 2022, its navy bloackded the country s black sea ports. that trapped 20 million tonnes of grain, sending global food prices skyrocketing. injuly last year, the un and turkey brokered a deal to get grain flowing again. when shipments restarted, world food prices fell by about 20%.
stated red lines like to defend crimea, like the maintenance of the land bridge from russia to crimea, what happens if they are able to accomplish that? how does putin embattled at home and abroad, no allies around the world, how does he respond to that? what sort of escalation might he take? as the leader of russia who believes he is losing because he is fighting all of nato notjust ukraine, might he expand that war? what efforts might he take in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure attacks and espionage against front line states like poland for example, the baltic states, what might you do in ukraine? we have heard all of these reports about mining the largest nuclear plant in russia. is he going to allow ukrainians to reoccupy that or will he destroy it? is a horrible things to think about but they are absolutely in play given what has
is there may be movements happening certainly in the coming weeks, perhaps more in the coming months. bill: great to see you and congratulations on the latest procedure. it s wonderful, wonderful news, thank you, ben. dana: great to see him and wonderful to hear. let s bring in jack keane as the fox news senior strategic analyst. let s get to what ben was talking about. what do you see in ukraine today? it feels like there is a change happening here. yeah, most definitely, dana. let me break it down for our audience to understand. strategically what ukrainians want is the liberation of all of their territory to include crimea. that has been their goal from the beginning. operationally what the objective is for this counter offensive is to move to the south, cut off the main supply routes from russia to crimea, move to the sea and in doing that and therefore isolate crimea and
and it will be the few days or a week or two. martha: the effort is to cut off crimea and have the ability to retake crimea, right? the strategic offense is to go to the sea and cut the main supply routes from russia to crimea, which was the so-called land bridge that they did not get in 2014 that they did get with the invasion. that will be the success for ukraine, that will cut everything off or crimea. bring the forces forward to launching attacks long-range weapon systems. and not necessarily in crimea yet, but prepare for that. and that will take place next year. so we will see. martha: it s a big goal and it goes outside of the original move into russia in the east.
some point, the so called land bridge from russia to gloria is severed but russia has already supplied crimea for eight years without already having a land bridge krusher to crimea. i guess they can do it without mounds what i m expecting it i hope i am wrong is that ukraine will make modest but only modest gains in the spring offensive and russia having been fortified by this mobilisation that priddin carried out, having a lot of trench lines, anti tank weapons will perhaps be able to limit just how far and deeply ukraine can penetrate with these nine brigades but on the other hand nine brigades is not a trivial force and if they can really do fantastic combined arms manoeuvre even without much of an air force, manoeuvre even without much of an airforce, who knows? but my money is in favour of predicting a relatively modest set of games for ukraine this spring. set of games for ukraine this s-urin. , set of games for ukraine this s..rin , set of games for ukraine this s-urin.