Hot weather slows crops as drone attacks disrupt Russian logistics

Unfortunately, an unusual dry and hot spell for western Ukraine has slowed growth with a week of 35+⁰C temperatures recently. It has been surprisingly cooler and wetter in the east for once, but we needed rain in the west.

Many crops have not met between the rows yet, a stark contrast to our small irrigated area.

Elsewhere in Ukraine rains have been more plentiful and crops are looking good. Thankfully forecast rains have just fallen in the west as I write.

Winter barley and oilseed rape harvest is under way with around $140/t for barley and $180/t for wheat. No support payments here.

Russia’s harvest has had a difficult start because of weather and fuel shortages. Ukraine’s outlook is generally stable to slightly improved from last year, despite the continuing impact of the war.

Ukraine is expected to produce a grain and oilseed crop of roughly 84 million tonnes in 2026, up modestly from about 80 million tonnes in 2025, according to the Ukrainian Grain Association. About 23mt of this will be wheat compared to a reduced Russian harvest of around 80mt of wheat.

The planted wheat area was down in Russia as farmers sowed a higher area of more profitable oilseeds. Oilseed prices have now dropped in line with crude. US and EU wheat crop estimates are down on lower plantings and heat respectively, with US wheat area projected at its lowest level in nearly 150 years..

US stocks are also less than expected. Maize conditions in France are suffering at a 15-year low. Barley production is down around 10% in the EU but malting stocks are good.

With a temporary drop in crude oil prices, the biofuel-linked support for grain prices has reduced. Trump has clearly stated the ceasefire has now ended and resumed bombing of Iranian infrastructure. Watch this space.

It was good to see a positive change in EU regulations on gene editing. A new generation of GE crops will be essential for global food security in a changing landscape and climate.

The tenth anniversary of Brexit passed not with a bang but a whimper. The main protagonists for Brexit face or have achieved ignominy. The

much-promised trade deals are a damp squib for the economy, while simultaneously threatening farming and food standards.

Scottish farmers have been shielded from the worst Brexit excesses on farm support faced by English farmers thus far, but our crops are not the only ones feeling the heat. As I’ve predicted in the past, Nigel Farage is now facing both the financial and criminal consequences of some very suspect unreported dealings.

Peak Reform may well have passed as a result. Will his end be even more ignominious than that of Johnson? Does the Binface of History await?

There is no doubt the the balance has changed in the war, with Russia losing territory and, in June alone, it lost 40,000 soldiers on the front. An Omaha beach of losses every 2.5 days.

The grey kill zone at the front has extended from 15km to nearer 50km with new drone technology. Using AI, Ukrainian drone swarms can mimic the behaviour of bird flocks, thus avoiding and confusing Russian air defences. This has not been innovation for its own sake. It was a necessity. Ukraine did not have the tank formations of Russia. It did not have the artillery stockpiles, the air force, the navy – the sheer mass that Moscow could throw at their war. What it did have was engineers, both mechanical and software – and urgency. A battle for national existence that left no room for doctrinal sentimentality.

Denied the necessary quantum of tools of old warfare by the US and the West, Ukraine built new ones – an entire drone-based industrial base.

This is now much in demand in the Middle East, bringing in both valuable alliances and hard foreign currency. Assembled and realised at warp speed, forming potentially the most important military industrial complex in the free world. Constraint, not comfort, is what produced this breakthrough.

This is in stark contrast with the failure of the UK Ajax armoured vehicle, based on a European design. The UK MoD stipulated 3000 modifications, to produce a costly failure both of process and outcome. Burnham, take note.

A Game of Drones indeed, but sadly no game. Ukraine has extended the war fronts with increased drone capability in both Crimea and in Russia itself. As previously noted, Ukraine is targeting oil refineries and has significantly reduced Russian oil-refining capability and thus supplies to both consumers and industry. Novorossiysk, the city whose entire economy is built on shipping Russia’s oil to the world, can no longer fill its own tanks. Gas stations are dry.

Refuelling is now rationed to fuel card-holders only. Diesel is available at exactly eight stations across the city – the port that exported millions of tonnes of Russian crude every year. The city that lives off the hydrocarbon trade. Out of gas.

This irony is not lost on its angry inhabitants. One genuinely could not make this up. With Russian fertiliser ‘king’ Melnichenko and warmongering ultra-nationalist Kalashnikov now publicly calling the war a Russian failure, fractures are appearing.

Kalashnikov has even invoked the word Tsushima in relation to destruction of oil refineries. This is significant as it refers to the destruction of the Russian fleet by the Japanese in 1905. A huge shame for Russia which caused the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin and led to the fall of Tsar Nicholas.

Harvest in Ukraine has begun in southern oblasts and is progressing normally as planned helped by good spring rainfall.

The Black Sea export infrastructure remains functional despite the ongoing conflict, although Russian missile and drone attacks continue to pose risks. Ukraine is thus expected to remain one of the world’s largest wheat, corn, and sunflower oil exporters. Russia will remain the world’s largest wheat exporter, but this year’s harvest is starting under much more challenging conditions. The reduction in availability of diesel fuel not only reduces the efficiency and speed of on-farm operations, but quality too.

Russia is a huge country and suffers, like Australia, from what geographers term ‘the tyranny of distance’.

I well recall us having to ship refrigerated lorries full of crisping potatoes over 1000 miles to Moscow, before PepsiCo opened its Odesa factory. We also shipped tens of thousands of tonnes of oilseed rape westwards to Germany for biodiesel.

Russia has few ports close to its grain-producing areas and its wheat has to travel long distances for export – all fuelled by diesel on rail or road to the ports or borders.

Drone technology has allowed Ukraine to control most of the Black Sea, even without a navy.

In the last few days, Ukrainian drones have damaged or sunk scores of Russian shadow fleet ships in the Azov Sea – all destined to transport their valuable oil and grain exports, as well as supply their invading forces.

Shipping in the important Don-Azov shipping lane has been suspended. The international shipping industry is underpinned by insurance of both cargoes and ships.

Lack of insurance other than by the Russian state itself will have a significant effect on both shipping and the state.

These attacks represent one of the largest attack on Russian maritime fuel logistics and this may well have an impact on grain and fuel prices in due course. Ukrainian operations are also affecting Moscow residents with huge queues at fuel stations.

Logistics Dear Boy, Logistics. Cleverly, Ukrainian IT hackers are also playing a game with Moscow drivers. They are reported to have targeted consumer fuel station apps. False notifications misdirect drivers to empty stations with promises of new deliveries and vice versa. Increased queues and fights at the pumps ensue. Brilliant stuff! All this increases pressure within the Russian state and even Putin has had to admit there are problems caused by ‘terrorist’ attacks. Not before time, Moscow has to endure some of the same nightly disturbances that Ukraine has had to suffer for more than four years.

As Zelenskyy brilliantly replied to Trump’s query at last week’s Nato conference, when he was asked by Trump whether he would go to Moscow.

“No Mr President because of the risk posed by Ukrainian drones, it is too dangerous for me!”

Meanwhile, further south, the occupied landscape of Crimea (Krim) has heated up for Russian invaders as daily drone attacks hit infrastructure and military targets causing massive fuel, water and power shortages.

The Ukrainians have left the Kerch bridge intact, so far, to allow whining Russian colonisers to escape back to the mainland. A journey and event that was far from Putin’s wayward promises of a new peaceful and prosperous life for them in Crimea. Another War Krim by Putin, on his own people to add to his meatgrinder assaults. Even President Lukashenko of Belarus is now backing away from firm support of Putin’s madness and crimes.

At the Eastern Front, the current rate of Russian advance would take over a century to reach Kyiv. The tide is turning in North, East and South in Ukraine’s favour. Russia thought this war was about tanks, but Ukraine has made it about tankers.