Substitute while the actions of the article are loading
Read an excerpt from Today’s WorldView. Sign up to get the rest for freeincluding news from around the world, interesting ideas and opinions you need to know, sent to your inbox every weekday.
Think of it as a war beyond war. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and ongoing military offensives to seize most of its neighbor’s territory have caused much damage in their own right – fears of tens of thousands of civilians killed, millions displaced and billions of dollars in damage. cities and critical infrastructure of Ukraine.
But the crisis has also had dramatic wave effects around the world. The cumulative effect of Russian attacks on Ukraine and the blockade of its Black Sea ports, as well as Western sanctions against Russian exports, have led to a sharp rise in prices in places far from the conflict zone. In poorer countries in Asia and Africa, the price of basic products such as wheat and cooking oil has risen, creating new strains for societies that can at least afford them. In the Horn of Africa alone, up to 20 million people could starve this year due to food shortages and prolonged droughts.
Now foreign governments are fighting for options to release Ukraine’s huge supplies of agricultural products, especially wheat. Ukrainian authorities say about 20 million tonnes of grain have been seized in the country, with Russia simultaneously blocking ports that remain in Ukrainian hands and allegedly bombing Ukrainian grain storage facilities.
Through various diplomatic channels, Ukrainian authorities are exploring the possibility of moving grain shipments by train to distant ports on the Baltic Sea, as well as neighboring Romania. But significant logistical problems remain, including whether these ports have the capacity to effectively absorb the increased burdens. Cold War-era construction can also be an obstacle.
“Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania and other former members of the Soviet Union use the Russian standard for rail gauge,” the Wall Street Journal explains. “Poland, Romania and most of the rest of Europe use a narrower gauge. In order to move the grain beyond these limits, it is either necessary to change the running cars of railcars or to move the load to new trains.
Putin says he will not use trade routes to attack Odessa. This is the same Putin who told German Chancellor Scholz and French President Macron that he would not attack Ukraine – days before a full-scale invasion of our country. We cannot trust Putin, his words are empty.
– Dmitry Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) June 6, 2022
Turkey’s awkward role in the Russia-Ukraine war
On Monday, this was reported in the Russian state media nascent Russian-Turkish plan to ease the blockade of the large Black Sea port of Odessa. Turkish ships will help demine waters off the city’s shores and ensure the safe passage of Ukrainian cargo ships carrying grain across the Bosphorus and to Mediterranean ports. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected in Ankara on Wednesday for talks with Turkish counterparts.
However, the Ukrainian authorities have expressed serious reservations about the plan under discussion. “Commenting in advance on the deal, Russia seeks to shift responsibility for Ukraine to the supply disruption,” Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s deputy economy minister, told Bloomberg News. “The fact remains, however, that the food crisis was created artificially only by Russia and Russia.
On Twitter, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned that the Kremlin was using the port to invade Odessa. In recent weeks, politicians and diplomats from the Baltic states and Poland, countries most wary of Russian plans, have similarly warned against entering into dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease the blockade.
Russian authorities have tried to focus on their own thwarted exports of food and fertilizers, thanks to broad Western sanctions imposed on the country’s economy since its invasion of Ukraine. US and Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow of using its blockade as a form of extortion to gain some easing of sanctions.
U.S. officials also cite clear evidence of Russian ships carrying “stolen” Ukrainian grain from ports under its control, including the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. It is difficult to look at Russian offers in good faith, given how they are actively and deliberately destroying food in Ukraine and exacerbating global food insecurity, “a US official told Politico.
Anthony Blinken accuses Russia of “blackmailing” over the theft of Ukrainian food supplies and the blockade “The Kremlin must realize that it is starving and suffering far beyond Ukraine … with countries in Africa that are experiencing a huge share of pain” pic.twitter.com / 6zEmJXALwF
– Rob Crilly (@robcrilly) June 6, 2022
Outside the West, Putin is less isolated than you think
But governments elsewhere are more receptive to Russia’s position. On Friday, Senegalese President Maki Sol, who is also president of the African Union, met with Putin in the Black Sea city of Sochi. There, Sal complains that African countries, “although far from the theater, are victims of this economic crisis.”
Between 2018 and 2020, Africa imports about 44% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Wheat prices have risen by about 45 percent since the recent upheaval, according to the African Development Bank.
With Putin by his side, Sal called for relief for both Ukraine and the country he chose to attack. “The fact that this crisis has led to the suspension of exports from Ukraine, but also from Russia because of the sanctions, we found ourselves between these two,” Sal told reporters. “It is absolutely necessary [governments in the West] help to facilitate the export of Ukrainian cereals, but also that Russia can export fertilizers, food products, but mainly cereals.
A majority of African countries in the UN General Assembly voted to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But in a time of growing economic crisis, countries far removed from the conflict are less concerned with how they receive their food and who sends it.
“Africans don’t care where they get their food from, and if anyone is moralizing about it, they’re wrong,” Hassan Haneje, director of the Kenya-based International Institute for Strategic Studies HORN, told the New York Times. shipments of Ukrainian grain.
“The need for food is so serious that it is not something they should discuss,” he said.
Add Comment