Putin’s ruthless power play may not preclude a revival of Ukraine grain deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin just reminded the world that he has the capacity to apply pain far beyond the excruciating torment he’s inflicting on Ukraine.

Russia’s suspension of a deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain from a region fabled as the world’s bread basket threatens to cause severe food shortages in Africa and send prices spiraling in supermarkets in the developed world. In the United States, it represents a political risk for President Joe Biden, who is embarking on a reelection campaign and can hardly afford a rebound of the high inflation that hounded US consumers at its peak last year.

Russia’s decision looked at first sight like a face-saving reprisal for an attack claimed by Ukraine on a bridge linking the annexed Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland. The bridge was a vanity project for Putin and the apparent assault represented another humiliation for the Russian leader in a war that has gone badly wrong.

The Black Sea grain deal, agreed last year and brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, was a rare diplomatic ray of light during a war that has shattered Russia’s relations with the US and its allies and has had global reverberations.

By refusing to renew it, Putin appears again to be seeking to impose a cost on the West, in return for the sanctions strangling the Russian economy. He may reason that a food inflation crisis might help splinter political support in NATO nations for the prolonged and expensive effort to save Ukraine. And grain shortages afflicting innocent people in the developing world could exacerbate international pressure for a negotiated end to a war that has turned into a disaster for Russia.

The United States and other Western powers reacted to Russia’s announcement that the deal had been “terminated” with outrage, mirroring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s warning that…