Russia’s foreign ministry said it will only consider opening access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports if the removal of sanctions against Russia is also considered, the Interfax news agency reports.
Russian deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, was quoted as saying:
You have to not only appeal to the Russian Federation but also look deeply at the whole complex of reasons that caused the current food crisis and, in the first instance, these are the sanctions that have been imposed against Russia by the US and the EU that interfere with normal free trade, encompassing food products including wheat, fertilisers and others.
Rudenko’s remarks come after the United Nations food chief, David Beasley, pleaded with Vladimir Putin, saying millions would die around the world because of the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports.
Addressing the Russian president directly, Beasley said:
If you have any heart at all for the rest of the world, regardless of how you feel about Ukraine, you need to open up those ports.
Beasley’s World Food Programme feeds some 125m people and buys 50% of its grain from Ukraine. Ukraine is among the top five global exporters of several vital agricultural products, including corn, wheat and barley, as well as being a key exporter of sunflower and meal.
Earlier today, the UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the food shortages stoked by the war in Ukraine could cause “malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years” across the world.