Shafaq News/ Ukraine's new agriculture minister Mykola Solskyi on Saturday said Ukraine's ability to export grains was getting worse by the day and would only improve if the war with Russia ends.

Speaking in a televised briefing, Solskyi said Ukraine, one of the world's top grain producers, would normally be exporting 4-5 million tonnes of grain per month - a volume that has fallen to just a few hundred-thousand tonnes.

"The impact (on global markets) is direct, dramatic and large. And it continues. Every day the situation will become more and more difficult," he said.

Ukraine has already suspended exports of rye, oats, millet, buckwheat, salt, sugar, meat and livestock since the invasion, and introduced licences for wheat, corn and sunflower oil exports.

Ukraine’s grain shipments have dropped from 4 million to 5 million tons per month to a few hundred thousand, Solskyi said.

Ukraine was the world’s sixth-largest exporter of wheat in 2021 with a 10% share of the market, shipping 20 million tons of wheat and meslin (a mixture of wheat and rye), according to the United Nations, and the country is also one of the world’s top exporters of barley and sunflower seeds.