Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday cautioned of an impending global food crisis and said he would consider changing a landmark grain deal with Ukraine to limit the nations that can get cargo shipments.
Putin said on September 7 that Moscow had done everything possible to make sure Ukraine was able to export its grain, but that problems in the global food market were expected to aggravate and that a humanitarian catastrophe was impending.
Putin said Russia had struck the deal in July, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, on the understanding it would help ease rising food prices in the developing world, but instead rich Western countries benefitted from the deal.
Putin told an economic forum in the eastern city of Vladivostok on Wednesday:
“If we exclude Turkey as an intermediary country, then almost all the grain exported from Ukraine is sent not to the poorest developing countries, but to European Union countries.”
Putin said only two of eighty-seven ships, transporting 60,000 tonnes of products, reached poor countries, as he blamed the West for acting as colonial states.
“Once again, developing countries have simply been deceived and continue to be deceived. It is obvious that with this approach, the scale of food problems in the world will only increase … which can lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
Putin said he would consider limiting the destinations for grain and other food exports” and would talk about the idea with Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan, who aided in brokering the deal to release exports from Ukraine’s southern ports in July.
Buy Crypto NowSome top Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, have said in the last 24 hours that Moscow is not content with the terms of the agreement and that the West is not abiding by its commitment.
Moscow says it was assured of the removal of some logistical sanctions which it says obstruct its own exports of fertilizers and agricultural products, in exchange for reducing the military blockade on Ukraine’s southern ports to enable food cargo to leave its ports. Lavrov said on Tuesday he had seen no measures by the West to calm the situation.
