Egypt has become one of three mediators seeking a way to restore Black Sea shipping, halted by Russian strikes on ports and vessels. Together with Turkey and India, Cairo has proposed a scheme under which ships flying the mediators’ flags would call at both Ukrainian and Russian ports, with both sides committing not to attack either. Volodymyr Zelensky described the plan in an interview with Bloomberg on 18 October, as reported by NV.
“One ship goes to our port, another to a Russian one, and we agree not to attack either,” the president said. Russia opposes the plan, he said, even though the mediators are trying to agree on how to implement it.
How it came to this
Grain exports through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports stopped in August because of Russian strikes. On 4 September, after discussing food security with partners in the Middle East and North Africa, Zelensky singled out Egypt’s president with thanks for his “constructive” approach, Ukrinform reported.
On 23 September, at the Crimea Platform summit in New York, he named the three mediators publicly for the first time. “Egypt, India and Turkey have already offered us their options, and they are on paper,” he said, adding that Ukraine agrees to a path that could provide security and is waiting for Russia’s answer, Ukrinform reported.
Two days later, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told the agency that Egypt and Turkey were looking for a formula to at least partially restore shipping, while India was working on a broader package covering food security, sea routes and a possible energy truce. “Putting these plans into practice now depends only on Russia’s readiness. Egyptian and Turkish contacts with the Russians are continuing,” he told Ukrinform.
In late September, the issue was discussed at a closed-door meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly with the US, India, Turkey, Egypt and European countries. According to Bloomberg, Turkey and the UN are preparing a new round of talks partly modelled on the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative, UkraNews reported. Ukraine’s agriculture minister Taras Vysotskyi, however, said on 28 September that Russia had rejected all the proposed options for a limited ceasefire at sea.
Why it matters to Egypt
For Cairo, this is about bread. Egypt is one of the world’s largest wheat importers and the biggest buyer of Ukrainian wheat: in the 2025/26 season it bought 3.86 million tonnes, or 27.6% of Ukraine’s wheat exports, Latifundist reported. According to Qahwa.Media’s calculations based on State Customs Service data, Ukraine shipped 2.18 million tonnes of wheat to Egypt in January–September 2026 alone. Ukrinform estimates that about a third of the grain Egypt needs comes from Ukraine.
Sea logistics are crucial: the Danube and rail cannot replace deep-water ports. In the Bloomberg interview, Zelensky estimated that around 36 million tonnes of grain could be shipped through Black Sea ports in a marketing year, admitting: “We cannot cope with such a volume by rail.” Ukraine has asked the EU to restore the Solidarity Lanes.
For Egypt, mediation is also a way to affirm its role as a regional power that both Kyiv and Moscow talk to. Whether that role proves decisive depends on Russia’s consent, which has not yet been given.
