Putin ‘holding the world to ransom’ over food, says Liz Truss

The British foreign secretary also accuses the Russian leader of ‘weaponising’ hunger

Liz Truss (AP)

Vladimir Putin is holding “the world to ransom” over food, Britain’s foreign minister Liz Truss has claimed.

Speaking on a trip to Bosnia, she also accused the Russian leader of “weaponising hunger” across the world.

Responding to a question about whether she supported lifting sanctions in exchange for grain exports from Ukraine, the foreign minister responded: “It is completely appalling that Putin is trying to hold the world to ransom, and he is essentially weaponising hunger and lack of food amongst the poorest people around the world,.”

She added: “We simply cannot allow this to happen. Putin needs to remove the blockade on Ukrainian grain.”

Her claims came amid growing concern about a looming global food crisis. The UN has warned millions could starve starve and lead to civil unrest in hunger-prone countries.

Russia has been accused of blockading Ukrainian ports, stopping exports from one of the world’s biggest grain producers and sending food prices skyrocketing around the world.

More than 20 million tonnes of grain are stuck in silos around Ukraine. Several of the world’s most insecure countries, such as Lebanon and war-torn Yemen, are highly dependent on Ukraine for food supplies.

Western allies of Ukraine have been discussing ways to break the Russian blockade without military intervention.

Ukraine said Thursday that it has no chance of hitting its targets unless Russia’s blockade of its Black Sea ports is lifted, a government official said.

Before Russia sent troops into Ukraine on 24 Feb, the country had the capacity to export up to six million tonnes of wheat, barley and maize a month but exports collapsed to just 300,000 tonnes in March and 1.1 million in April.

While the government wants to lift that to 2 million, it is hitting logistical bottlenecks that could take years and billions of dollars to overcome.

At the moment, Ukraine has at least 20 million tonnes of surplus grain in silos and the APK-Inform agricultural consultancy estimates another 40 million could be available for export once the next harvest comes in this summer.

“There is hunger in Africa and in other countries. We have seen the dynamics of a population missing that food from year to year,” said Roman Rusakov, a senior official at Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry. “I just cannot imagine what might happen without Ukraine shipping next season’s exportable surplus.”

However, the Kremlin on Thursday rejected claims that Russia had blocked grain exports from Ukraine, and accused the West of creating such a situation by imposing sanctions.

“We categorically do not accept these accusations. On the contrary, we blame Western countries of taking actions that have led to this,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

Moscow called for the West to remove the sanctions which it says are blocking grain exports from Ukraine.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is among those who have accused Moscow of using food exports as a weapon, while Kyiv has said Russia has stolen hundreds of thousands of tonnes of grain in areas their forces have occupied.

Truss said that “we cannot have is any lifting of sanctions, any appeasement, which will simply make Putin stronger in the longer term”.