EU says Moscow using food supplies as ‘stealth missile’ against poor countries

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Michel gave strong backing to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ efforts to get a package agreement that would allow grain exports from Ukraine and ensure that Russian food and fertiliser have unrestricted access to global markets.

Ukraine and Russia together produce almost a third of the world’s wheat and barley and half of its sunflower oil, while Russia and its ally Belarus are the world’s number two and three producers of potash, a key ingredient of fertiliser.

Corn lies scattered in a grain warehouse damaged by Russian tanks in Cherkska Lozova, Ukraine. Credit:Getty

Guterres warned last month that global hunger levels “are at a new high,” with the number of people facing severe food insecurity doubling in just two years from 135 million before the COVID-19 pandemic to 276 million today.

He said more than 500,000 people are living in famine conditions -- an increase of more than 500 per cent since 2016.

Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the Security Council on Monday that the country remains committed to finding solutions to prevent the global food crisis and is ready to create “the necessary conditions” to resume exports from the key southern port of Odesa.

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“The question is how to make sure that Russia does not abuse the trade route to attack the city itself,” he said.

Kyslytsya said the question has become more relevant since four Russian missiles hit a plant in the capital Kyiv on Sunday where freight cars that carry grain to Ukrainian ports were being repaired.

“It means all Putin’s fairy tales about his readiness to facilitate Ukrainian wheat export that he so eloquently tells his rare interlocutors remain too far removed from reality,” the Ukrainian ambassador said.

Nonetheless, “we continue our work with the UN and partners to ensure the functioning of the maritime rules for the expert for Ukrainian agricultural products,” Kyslytsya said.

A meeting of the UN Security Council.Credit:AP

“As a first step,” he said, “Russia must withdraw its naval forces in the maritime waters around Ukraine and provide security guarantees against attacks in ports” and against commercial ships.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday there are credible reports that Russia is “pilfering” Ukraine’s grain exports to sell for its own profit.

Speaking during a virtual roundtable with philanthropies, non-governmental organisations and private sector entities, Blinken said the alleged theft was part of broader Russian actions during its war in Ukraine that have hit Ukraine’s ability to export its wheat crop and worsened a global food security crisis.

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