That’s significant for the people who need to eat it, the customers. And I have no doubt that it is internally-disruptive to Ukraine’s economy.

But as economic warfare against Ukraine as an aggregate, I don’t believe that it’s very impactful.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/russian-wheat-export-prices-dip-deal-reported-below-agmin-floor

The price of 12.5%-protein Russian wheat scheduled for free-on-board (FOB) delivery in October was $240 per metric ton last week, down from $245 a ton week earlier, the IKAR agriculture consultancy reported.

If we assume that that grain is wheat (it’s not all wheat, but I don’t have a breakdown of what was destroyed), at that price, that’s about $67 million in damage.

As economic damage goes, that’s pretty minimal, especially when the weapons Russia is using are not cheap. There’s also damage to the grain silos, but as structures go, they aren’t terribly-costly-to-rebuild either; the structures are mostly corrugated sheet metal. If Russia is going to be shooting at something, aside from open ocean, this probably is fairly high on the list of what it’d be preferable for Russia to be shooting at.

There might be disruption of the grain trade in subsequent years from infrastructure damage, but:

• Russia has already disrupted grain production via things like blowing the dam at Nova Kakhovka, mining a bunch of farmland, and such, so some of that capacity was already in excess.

• Some of this is already being taken up by shipments through the EU.

Even if Russia managed to entirely cut off all Ukrainian wheat and corn exports, the principal grain exports, it’s something like pre-war $11 billion/year. Compared to the amounts sent as aid in the war, that’s not nothing, but it’s not especially large, either. And Russia cannot halt economic aid with a naval blockade; as long as the West provides sufficient economic aid, firing missiles at grain seems pretty unlikely to me to be an effective economic warfare strategy.

I’ve seen various publications say that the aim is to try to create pressure from countries whose food supply is being cut off to end the war sooner (and presumably on terms favorable to Russia), but that seems like a very risky tactic: it seems like a pretty good way for those countries to wind up upset with Russia instead.