European Council President Charles Michel on Monday accused Russia of using food supplies as “a stealth missile against developing countries” and blamed the Kremlin for the looming global food crisis, prompting Moscow’s UN ambassador to walk out of a Security Council meeting.
Michel addressed Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia directly at the meeting, saying he saw millions of tonnes of grain and wheat stuck in containers and ships in Odesa a few weeks ago.
That was “because of Russian warships in the Black Sea,” and Moscow’s attacks on transport infrastructure and grain storage facilities, and its tanks, bombs and mines are preventing Ukraine from planting and harvesting, Michel said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“This is driving up food prices, pushing people into poverty and destabilizing entire regions,” Michel said. “Russia is solely responsible for this looming food crisis. Russia alone.”
Michel also accused Russian forces of stealing grain from areas it has occupied, “while shifting the blame of others,” calling this “cowardly” and “propaganda, pure and simple.”
Nebenzia walked out during Michel’s briefing.
Deputy Russian Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky later wrote on Telegram’s Russian channel that Michel’s comments were “so rude” that the Russian ambassador left the Security Council chamber.
The UN Security Council meeting was supposed to focus on sexual violence during the war in Ukraine, but Russia’s invasion and its consequences, especially food shortages and rising prices, were also raised.
Michel gave strong backing to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ efforts to get a package agreement that would allow grain exports from Ukraine, and ensure that Russian food and fertilizer have unrestricted access to global markets.
Ukraine and Russia together produce almost one-third of the world’s wheat and barley, and half of its sunflower oil, while Russia and its ally Belarus are the world’s No. 2 and No. 3 producers of potash, a key ingredient of fertilizer.
Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN Sergiy Kyslytsya told the Security Council that the nation remains committed to finding solutions to prevent the global food crisis and is ready to create “the necessary conditions” to resume exports from the key southern port of Odesa.
“The question is how to make sure that Russia does not abuse the trade route to attack the city itself,” Kyslytsya said.
He said the question has become more relevant since four Russian missiles hit a plant in the capital, Kyiv, on Sunday where freight cars that carry grain to Ukrainian ports were being repaired.
“It means all [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s fairy tales about his readiness to facilitate Ukrainian wheat export that he so eloquently tells his rare interlocutors remain too far removed from reality,” he said.
Nonetheless, “we continue our work with the UN and partners to ensure the functioning of the maritime rules for the export for Ukrainian agricultural products,” Kyslytsya said. “As a first step, Russia must withdraw its naval forces in the maritime waters around Ukraine and provide security guarantees against attacks in ports” and against commercial ships.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in an online roundtable discussion with private sector groups on food security issues arising from the conflict, accused Russian forces of planting explosives in captured farmland and hoarding Ukraine’s food exports.
Blinken said Putin is doing this and “aggressively using his propaganda machine to deflect or distort responsibility because he hopes it will get the world to give in to him and then the sanctions. In other words, quite simply put: It’s blackmail.”
“The Kremlin needs to realize that it is exporting starvation and suffering well beyond Ukraine borders,” with Africa experiencing “an outsize share of the pain,” he said.
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