Putin wants to block the export of grain from Ukrainian ports to the EU
Russian President Putin proposed to once again limit the export of grain from Ukrainian ports on the pretext that a significant part of the grain is sent to EU countries, not Africa.
As CTS reports with reference to Vidomosti, the head of the aggressor country stated this at the Eastern Economic Forum. Putin said that he plans to consult with Turkish President Erdogan on this issue.
"If we exclude Turkey, as an intermediary country, then practically all the grain exported from Ukraine is directed not to poor developing countries, but to EU countries. According to the UN food program, which is intended to help countries that need it, only 2 ships out of 87 were loaded. 60,000 tons of food out of 2 million tons were exported on them. Well, this is only 3%, which is sent to developing countries," Putin said.
It is worth clarifying that during the month of operation of the "grain corridor" 68 ships left the partially unlocked Ukrainian ports, the ports of destination of which are located in 18 countries of the world. In total, 1.7 million tons of agricultural products were exported. The largest amount of grain was sent to Asian countries - 726,000 tons. Ships from three Ukrainian ports transported or are still delivering 640,000 tons to EU countries.
365,000 tons of grain from Ukraine have already been sent to Africa. At the same time, within the framework of the UN Food Program (for which the UN is actually responsible) to Ethiopia and Yemen currently from60.8 thousand tons of Ukrainian wheat were processed.
It should be noted that the head of Russia is unlikely to be interested in the problems of hunger in African countries, because by starting a war against Ukraine and blocking its ports, Putin was the first to provoke a food crisis in the world. In addition to blocking Ukrainian ports, the Russian Federation exacerbated this problem by systematic theft of Ukrainian grain with subsequent resale abroad.
In addition, the opening of the "grain corridor" greatly worried Russian grain traders, because it made it possible to bring a larger volume of inexpensive Ukrainian grain to the world market, which creates additional difficulties for Russian grain exports.