Famine… Russia used famine as a weapon before. Now, in her neocolonial delusion of reviving the misanthropic Soviet empire that had been extinct for more than three decades and with the aggression against Ukraine in the background, she is using it again.
91 years ago, the Ukrainian people felt on their own skin the lash of the famine orchestrated by Moscow, eager to erase once and for all the patriotic and independence spirit of Ukraine. According to recent studies, between 1932 and 1933, in the part of Ukraine occupied by the Bolsheviks, at least 4.5 million people died of starvation. In the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region of the 1930s, the documented death toll from starvation and malnutrition rose to 62,000, though historians have no doubt that the actual death toll is much higher.
As much as Russia denies the facts, more and more countries are recognizing the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine as genocide against the people of Ukraine. There is no doubt that with new historical evidence and archival investigations, and in the face of ongoing Russian genocidal practices against Ukraine, more foreign parliaments will follow the examples of the German Bundestag, the French National Assembly and Senate, and the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies, the most recent to recognize the extermination of the Ukrainians in 1932-1933 as an act of genocide.
After colliding with a harsh reality on the battlefield in Ukraine, and realizing its impotence to defeat the adversary militarily in a blitzkrieg -the blitzkrieg-, the Kremlin changed tactics and once again raised the stakes with a view to wearing down economically and emotionally to Ukraine and its partners, the European Union in the first place.
And, in this sense, from the Kremlin hunger is seen as the weapon of choice with an effect of mass destruction par excellence.
With Russia’s international reputation blown up after the Bucha massacre and other war crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine and an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Putin, Moscow may not be too concerned about committing another crime against humanity of exorbitant proportions.
Moscow is fully aware that more than 400 million people in the world depend on the uninterrupted flow of grain from Ukraine, which for decades has been one of the main suppliers that guaranteed food security on a global scale, mainly in Asian and African countries. By announcing its exit from the Black Sea Grains Initiative, Russia is putting millions of people around the world at risk of starvation. This news has already translated into rising food prices.
In addition to pursuing the goal of economically strangling Ukraine, this Russian strategy deliberately seeks to destabilize the Global South. The Kremlin calculates that an acute food crisis, the result of its blackmail and the cuts in the supply of grains from Ukraine, will trigger social unrest and political crises in the most vulnerable countries of Asia and Africa, and that it will be a trigger for the mass exodus of refugees to the West, and to the European Union as the first destination, just as occurred during the wars in Libya and Syria.
In turn, new waves of irregular immigration will undoubtedly lead to the rise of popular discontent in Europe, translating into the decline of moderate political forces that would go hand-in-hand with the electoral comeback of xenophobic parties, traditional allies of Putin’s chauvinist regime. The Kremlin is clearly betting on political change in Europe and is willing to hold out until it happens in order to re-establish dialogue and business with the Kremlin in response to its demands to stop sending arms and any other aid to Ukraine.
Last year, faced with a similar threat of global famine, the world rallied to secure Ukraine’s grain exports, which had been halted by the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s ports. Thanks to the mediations of the United Nations and Turkey, the Black Sea Grains Initiative was launched, a vital lifeline for the world. Its results are impressive since, within its framework, almost 33 million tons of agricultural products were exported to 45 countries. Thanks to the Initiative, more than half of the world supply of the United Nations World Food Program has been covered by Ukrainian cereals.
Contrary to the claims of Russian propaganda, almost two-thirds of Ukrainian exports went to developing countries and the most vulnerable from a food security point of view, in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Aware of its role as a global supplier of food, and assuming the commitment to guarantee food security, Ukraine, on the other hand, launched the Grain from Ukraine, an important humanitarian program, providing grain free of charge to the most needy peoples, mainly from Africa. This initiative was joined by 34 donor countries, including Spain, who helped finance the program and save many human lives threatened by hunger and malnutrition.
After the Black Sea Grains Initiative was announced a year ago, grain prices around the world fell immediately, which, along with other factors, had a long-term positive effect. Grain prices were 23.4% lower in June 2023 compared to March 2022 when Russia began blockading Ukraine’s seaports early in its open invasion.
Ukraine has never set any preconditions for extensions of the agreement governing the Black Sea Grain Initiative and has always stressed that it wants grain exports to continue uninterrupted.
On the contrary, Russia has systematically obstructed the flow of cereals within the framework of the agreements reached. Moscow deliberately reduced the number of inspections at the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul, limiting transit capacity to 1-2 vessels per day.
The last ship with Ukrainian grain left the port of Odessa on July 16. Since then, Russia has completely blocked the operation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Again resorting to blackmail to cut off Ukrainian grain supplies, Russia, on the other hand, is trying to force the West to ease sanctions that have nothing to do with food exports. It is worth mentioning that since 2022 no sanctions have been imposed on food exports from Russia, even though Moscow claims otherwise.
After announcing Moscow’s withdrawal from the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports, Russia quickly demonstrated its true attitude towards global food security by launching massive attacks against the key seaports of Odessa and Chornomorsk and port infrastructure.
Faced with these actions by Russia, the food market immediately reacted with price increases to such an extent that some countries banned cereal exports, such as rice in the case of India.
Russia has no right to ruin global food security. In essence, no one has it. The Kremlin has to give up staging these Hunger Games by ramming the logistics chains of the food supply in pursuit of its geopolitical chimeras.
On the other hand, all peoples, regardless of their continent or the region in which they live, have the right to stability in terms of the supply of essential basic products such as cereals.
For this reason, food security is one of the pillars of the Peace Formula presented by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, designed to restore a just and lasting peace in Ukraine in accordance with the United Nations Charter and to strengthen the security for the world as a whole. Ukraine hopes that more countries and international organizations will join this initiative and its implementation, in particular, in the field of food safety.
As a key guarantor of food security, Ukraine remains committed to supplying the African and Asian regions and other continents with its grains.
Russia’s decision to break its deal with the United Nations and Turkey has implications for the functioning of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. However, it does not affect the commitments made by Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations within the framework of it. Together, in a trilateral format, with the support of other countries, we can stand up to Russian blackmail and ensure the operation of food crossings and inspections of the ships that transport Ukrainian grain.
For this reason, we urge other member states of the United Nations to join the legitimate claim of the peoples for food security. Millions of hungry people in the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and other regions of our world must not be held hostage to the crazy ideas of universal dominance of the criminal Putin regime.
Serhii Pohoreltsev is Ukraine’s ambassador to Spain.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
