Latvia's prime minister wants Europe to shut Russian grain out of Baltic ports, arguing the squeeze could force Moscow to reopen Black Sea trade routes it has helped strangle.

Andris Kulbergs told Bloomberg in an interview in Brussels on Friday that the EU should block the transit of Russian grain through Baltic ports as a bloc, because unilateral Baltic action carries litigation risk and only collective pressure will move Moscow.

"It's needed that we put the right pressure in order for Russia to understand that they need themselves to open the Black Sea," Kulbergs said.

Why is Russian grain moving through the Baltics at all?

The answer lies in the Black Sea. Russia and Ukraine have struck each other's ports, terminals and shipping infrastructure in the region, sharply cutting exports of key commodities, grain chief among them. With direct Black Sea loading degraded, Moscow has diverted grain shipments over rail to Latvian and Lithuanian ports for export.

That diversion has drawn sharp criticism inside the Baltic countries, which are both EU and NATO members and among Kyiv's staunchest backers. The optics of Russian agri-exports moving through their gateways while Ukraine's own trade is suppressed have proved politically untenable in Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius alike.

What does Latvia want, concretely?

Kulbergs is pushing for an EU-level ban rather than go-it-alone measures. He said unilateral actions by the Baltic countries would raise litigation risks, and he joined calls already made by Estonia and Lithuania for a union-wide prohibition.

The logic is straightforward. A single-member ban exposes the acting state to legal claims from cargo interests and operators. An EU decision, by contrast, carries the bloc's legal weight and closes off rerouting options to neighboring EU ports.

"It's in all of our interests," Kulbergs said. "We're now talking about money and support for Ukraine, which they need this winter."

What's the commercial stake for Ukraine?

The prime minister tied the grain question directly to Ukraine's winter financing. Ukraine needs to be able to sell its grain, he said, to partly fill the funding gap it faces this winter. Export revenue from agricultural cargo is one of Kyiv's few reliable foreign-currency streams, and every ton blocked in Odesa-region terminals is revenue lost when the budget is stretched thinnest.

For Baltic port operators and rail freight carriers, the calculus cuts the other way. Russian grain diverted over rail has been generating volumes through Latvian and Lithuanian gateways. An EU ban would extinguish that traffic, a hit forwarders and terminal operators in the region will have to absorb — the price Riga appears willing to pay for a policy aimed at reopening the Black Sea.

Is a ban realistic?

The call lands amid wider Western friction over sanctions posture toward Moscow. The UK has tightened its sanctions on Russian oil, while Washington weighs relief. That split between allies complicates any push for a unanimous EU measure, since member states' appetites for escalation vary.

Estonia and Lithuania have already pressed for the ban, and Latvia's public alignment on Friday gives the position full Baltic weight in Brussels. What remains uncertain is whether the wider EU follows, and whether enough Russian grain volume is actually at stake to change Moscow's behavior toward Black Sea shipping.

The trajectory Kulbergs is betting on: a coordinated Baltic choke point on Russian grain transit, applied this winter, that raises the cost of the status quo until Moscow itself moves to reopen the Black Sea.