On May 11, senior Russian officials made false statements about the impact of the Kremlin war on Ukraine’s agricultural exports and global food supply. They come as global aid organizations’ concerns about shortages and hunger grow.
Before the war, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), said enough food to supply 400 million people was shipped from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, which are now blocked under a Russian blockade.
“WFP’s analysis found that 276 million people worldwide were already facing acute hunger as of early 2022,” the agency said. “That number is expected to rise by 47 million people if the conflict in Ukraine continues, with the steepest increases in sub-Saharan Africa.”
State Duma (lower house of parliament) Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said:
“The United States is preparing a Holodomor in Ukraine, and instead of providing real help, it takes from Ukraine what is most necessary.”
That is false.
The Holodomor refers to the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine caused by Soviet collectivization policies under dictator Joseph Stalin. Peasants’ houses were looted for food, Ukrainian cities were blacklisted for rations, and millions starved to death.
In fact, credible reports say Russia in this war has stolen food supplies. after destroying Ukraine’s storage capacity. Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces looted hundreds of thousands of tons of grain Ukraine, a major exporter of wheat and seeds.
According to a senior official at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, it is believed that Russia has stolen some 700,000 tons of grain from Ukraine since the war started.
The evidence remains “anecdotal” because it is impossible to collect statistics during the war, the official said, adding that Russia also allegedly stole farm equipment.
Contrary to Volodin’s claims, the United States is providing Ukraine with the humanitarian and military aid the country needs to overcome Russia’s military aggression and the devastation Russian forces wrought on Ukraine’s cities, towns and industries. US security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration amounts to $2 billion and will increase with the approval of lend-lease program for Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:
“Our actions have no impact on the world’s food problems.”
That is false.
Before the full invasion of Russia in February, Ukraine was among the world’s leading exporters of corn ($4.89 billion) and wheat ($4.61 billion), and the world’s largest exporter of seed oils ($5.32 billion). Russia’s war is disrupting the agricultural cycle, impeding food exports, disrupting food supply chains and causing food shortages around the world.
US lawmakers push for a humanitarian corridor to allow Black Sea shipments to be stopped due to a Russian blockade, Politico reported on May 11. Ukraine wheat supplies they are essential for many countries in the Middle East, among others.
“While European Union officials, with the help of the US, are ready to announce a new effort to ship Ukrainian grain over land routes via trains and trucks, land routes are costly and time-consuming to ship. become established, and even the planners acknowledge that they will not. compensate for the volume that can be moved by seaport,” reported the media.
“They now have 12 million tons of late-harvest produce that will go bad this fall unless it’s shipped,” said US Congressman Jason Crow. Crow was part of a delegation that met with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy in kyiv last month.
Foreign intelligence director Sergey Naryshkin said:
“The actions of the US State Department, which tries to discredit the Russian authorities and the Russian military by spreading false information, have much in common with the traditions of the propaganda ministry of the Third Reich and its head Joseph Goebbels ”.
That is false.
In fact, Russia false use of the label “Nazi” to attack Ukraine and other opponents of his illegal war has been widely discredited. Several dozen genocide scholars have condemned itwriting:
“Russian propaganda has painted the Ukrainian state as Nazi and fascist ever since Russian special forces first entered Ukraine in 2014, annexing Crimea and fomenting the conflict in Donbas that has been simmering for eight long years. It was propaganda in 2014. It is still propaganda today.”
In the meantime, russia military is accused of war crimesincluding looting, the deaths of thousands of civilians, the bombing of hospitals, schools and maternity wards, and potential genocide.
Reference-www.polygraph.info