Moscow: Anti-Russia sanctions by West triggered global food crisis

The Kremlin has held the West responsible for triggering a global food crisis by imposing a raft of harshest ever sanctions against Moscow, three months into Russia’s military operation in neighboring Ukraine.

Since the onset of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, waves of unprecedented sanctions from the United States and its European allies have been imposed on Moscow.

The ongoing war, as well as the West’s punitive measures against Moscow, have sent the price of grain, cooking oil, fertilizer and energy skyrocketing.

“Russia has always been a rather reliable grain exporter. We are not the source of the problem. The source of the problem that leads to world hunger are those who imposed sanctions against us, and the sanctions themselves,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday.

David Beasley, executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme, appealed on Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin to open Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for grain export from the ex-Soviet country, which is one of the world’s biggest grain producers.

Ukraine, which is a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil, used to export most of its goods through its main ports on the Black and Azov seas, but since the operation began, it has been forced to export by train or via its small Danube River ports.

The ongoing conflict has reduced its grain exports this month by more than half compared to a year ago.

Russia and Ukraine together account for almost a third of global wheat supplies. Russia and Belarus, which is also under sanctions by the West, account for over 40 percent of global exports of the crop nutrient potash.

The sanctions imposed since February 24 against Russia, the severest in modern, have had a significant impact on grain export by Russia.

Apart from imposing sanctions, the West, particularly the US, has also stepped up military support for Ukraine, sending an array of sophisticated weapons meant to hold off Russia's rapid advances.

Moscow has already warned that such a flow of weapons to Kiev will prolong Russia's operation.

MG