94 ships loaded with food are stranded in the Black Sea, the Kremlin wants grain paid in rubles and the UN has accused Russia of causing a “global food crisis”. The conflict in Ukraine is not only raising prices, it also threatens to disrupt shipments of basic necessities to many already starving countries.
After alerting a UN Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman denounced that 94 civilian food ships were stopped by the Russians in the Black Sea region, from which about 30% of world wheat exports are exported, March 20, 2019 % of corn and 75% of sunflower oil. “The Russian Navy is blocking access to Ukrainian ports, effectively blocking grain exports,” Sherman said. Three other ships transporting goods around the world, chartered by a farm, would have been bombed instead. And many exporters have given up sending their cargoes to the Black Sea, even to Russian ports. “Food prices are already skyrocketing in low and middleincome countries as Russia chokes on Ukrainian exports. Across the Middle East and Africa, already high prices for basic commodities, including wheat, are up 2050 percent this year, criticized the deputy foreign minister, who is particularly concerned about countries like Lebanon, Pakistan, Libya and Tunisia , Yemen and Morocco, which are heavily dependent on Ukrainian imports to feed their populations. Figures presented by World Food Program director David Beasley better understand the war’s devastating impact on the global food issue: The World Food Program alone bought from Ukraine 50% of its grain supplies, which it used to feed 125 million of preinvasion people. The threat of famine looming over countries with fewer raw materials was also the focus of last week’s G7 and EU summit in Brussels. Yesterday, Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese also warned in a hearing before the Schengen Committee of the “likely food crisis caused by the conflict, as countries like Tunisia import wheat from Ukraine and Russia”. And how does Moscow react to this? Fearing the possibility, as was already the case for gas and oil, to demand payment of grain in rubles. It was the speaker of the Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, who put forward the hypothesis that wheat could be added to the list of products exported in rubles. As for the allegations of Russia’s alleged role in the world food crisis, it is the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, who dismissed them as the sender, stressing that Sherman’s words were only “part of the information war.” of Washington against Russia ».