According to an Interfax news agency report, Moscow has stated that sanctions against Russia would have to be revisited if it were to heed a UN call to enable access to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports so that food could be transferred.
Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain producers, used to export the majority of its goods via seaports, but since Russia’s invasion, it has been obliged to export by train or through its minor Danube River ports.
“If you have any compassion at all, please open these ports,” UN food director David Beasley said to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.
The World Food Programme, run by Beasley, serves 125 million people and buys half of its grain from Ukraine.
“You have to look deeply at the whole complex of reasons that caused the current food crisis,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko told Interfax on Thursday. “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 such as wheat, fertilisers, and others.”
Russia’s decision to send soldiers into Ukraine almost three months ago has prohibited Ukraine from accessing its principal ports on the Black and Azov Seas, resulting in a more than 50% reduction in grain shipments this month compared to a year ago.
Together, Russia and Ukraine produce about a third of the world’s wheat. Ukraine is also a key exporter of grain, barley, sunflower oil, and rapeseed oil, while Russia and Belarus, which has backed Moscow in its participation in Ukraine and is now under sanctions, account for more than 40% of world potash exports.
