AMoscow has responded in three ways to Western accusations that Russia is using hunger as a weapon in the Ukraine war: it blames Ukraine itself for the fact that its grain cannot leave the Ukrainian ports; it advertises its own delivery qualities; and it uses the issue to build pressure to lift the sanctions.
It is not Russia that is blocking the ships transporting grain in the Black Sea, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Wassilij Nebensja, countered on Thursday when American Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for the “end of the blockade”. Rather, Ukraine is blocking 75 foreign ships from 17 countries in the ports of cities such as Odessa, Mykolaiv, Cherson and Mariupol, said Nebensia, “and it is Ukraine that has mined the Black Sea sea area.” The cities of Cherson and Mariupol are occupied by Russia; Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of using sea mines in the current war, but the Russian Navy controls the Ukrainian Black Sea coast.
Purchase of Russian grain increases sharply
Russia has been the world’s largest wheat exporter since 2017, with a recent 16 percent share; Before the war, Ukraine accounted for ten percent. Harvest successes are regularly praised by President Vladimir Putin himself, who recently promised a new record wheat harvest of 87 million tons for this year. In this way, one can “cover one’s own requirements with reserves” and expand deliveries “for our partners,” he rejoiced. Yelena Tyurina of the Russian Grain Union estimated in early May that Russia could export more than 40 million tons of the 87 million tons of wheat this year. In countries like Egypt, the purchase of Russian grain has recently increased sharply, but countries like Greece, Italy and Turkey are also among the buyers.
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This was alluded to by Economic Development Minister Maxim Reshetnikov, who said on Thursday that the company “remained a reliable supplier even under the current conditions” and had increased wheat exports “to neutral countries and even to those that imposed sanctions on us” in March and April. . Tyurina said that many countries that have previously bought Ukrainian wheat and corn are looking for new suppliers, “first of all they are turning to Russia”. Its exporters could open up new markets and “replace Ukrainian grain” there. As an example, the official cited Ethiopia, where wheat from Ukraine accounted for 45 percent of total imports. What is left out is that, according to media reports, grain is being stolen from the areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Moscow expects something in return
Instead, it is becoming apparent that Russia wants to use the global food crisis to improve its image in particular in African countries – where Russian propaganda media are on the rise anyway – at the expense of the West. The US Secretary of State has emphasized that the sanctions against Russia “deliberately and carefully created exceptions for agricultural goods and fertilizers” and that blame “some” on the USA and other countries is therefore “wrong”. However, Russian representatives loudly spread the opposite. Putin’s deputy in the National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, wrote on his Telegram channel that the “hellish sanctions” against Russia and the “expansion of NATO” are to blame for the lack of wheat and the rise in the price of energy resources. On the one hand, “ludicrous sanctions are being imposed on Russia, on the other hand, we are being asked to deliver food. There is no such thing, we are not idiots.”
Medvedev made clear Moscow’s geopolitical approach, saying he had just phoned the President of Namibia: “Our African friends understand that, by the way. Understand that the rich countries impose sanctions so that the poor get poorer.” Russia is ready to “fully fulfill its obligations,” wrote Medvedev. “But it expects support from trading partners, including in international forums.” In practice, this could mean that Russia’s war of aggression must not condemn those who want to get food and raw materials. Referring to the Soviet Union, which posed as a supporter of poor countries, Nebensia in New York also blamed the crisis on the West’s “geopolitical games” from which “the poorest countries and regions” suffer and claimed that Ukrainian grain should not go to “starving countries in the south, but to the granaries of European countries”.
Ways out are sought. According to the Wall Street Journal, Washington wants to offer Belarus to suspend sanctions on the export of potash fertilizers, in exchange for Ukrainian grain being transported to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda via Belarusian rails. But such an arrangement by the Minsk vassal could displease Putin. Its spokesman recently commented on reports that UN Secretary-General António Guterres had proposed relaxing restrictions on the export of Russian potash fertilizers if Moscow would allow grain to be brought out of Ukrainian ports in return, and that the Ukrainian ports would first have to be “de-mined”.
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