Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting that Russia had embarked on a “well-thought-out and cynical strategy” to destroy Ukraine’s agriculture.
Kuleba addressed the G20 meeting in Indonesia via videoconference.
“The Russian naval blockade of Ukrainian ports has already destroyed global food supply chains and has a detrimental effect on global food security. Adding insult to injury, Russia steals Ukrainian grain and bombs Ukrainian granaries,” he said.
“Russia is essentially playing hunger games with the world, holding the naval blockade of Ukrainian ports with one hand and shifting the blame to Ukraine with the other. Russia sees other countries’ dependence on any kind of resource as a weakness and an invitation to use that dependence as a lever for Russia’s gain.”
Kuleba said Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s second-largest grain terminal complex at the port of Mykolaiv in June, claiming that “Russia knew exactly where it fired its missiles.” The attack was aimed at wreaking havoc in Ukraine and “blackmailing the world,” he added.
Kuleba told foreign ministers that for decades Ukraine – often described as “a global breadbasket” – has been essential to world food security but is now being “attacked, bombed and looted by Russian criminals”.
Responding to Russian allegations that Ukraine was blocking its own ports, Kuleba said: “Your accusations defy basic logic. How can we be interested in blocking our own food exports when they provide one of our main sources of revenue for the budget? We are interested in exporting our food products as much as our consumers are interested in getting them as quickly as possible.”
Separately, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has alleged that Russia is using munitions to set fire to farmland as the harvest season begins. A recent video shows harvesters in parts of southern Ukraine trying to collect grain as fires burn the fields.
some background : The United Nations (UN) has said that Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports has already raised global food prices and threatens to cause catastrophic food shortages in some parts of the world.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said the release of a Russian ship allegedly carrying Ukrainian grain stolen from Turkish waters was “unacceptable”.
Turkey ignored a request to arrest the ship and cargo and the ship was released on July 6, according to a ministry statement. The Russian merchant ship, Zhibek Zholy, had loaded grain from the busy port of Berdiansk to the Turkish port of Karasu.
Russia has repeatedly denied that it is blocking ports or stealing grain.
Source: CNN Brasil
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