The United States and its G7 partners deliberately did not say that the food crisis was negatively affected by anti-Russian sanctions. This opinion was expressed by economist John Ross in an article for Asia Times.
According to Ross, the G7 (the G7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States) falsely claimed that the cause of the food crisis was primarily “Russia blocking Ukrainian grain exit routes.”
“This G7 statement deliberately misrepresents the current global food crisis. Instead of trying to resolve this crisis, the US and the rest of the G7 used this opportunity to further propaganda in Ukraine.
The author of the article concluded that Ukraine’s export restrictions are not the main reason for the deterioration of the situation.
“A much more powerful reason is the Western sanctions imposed on Russian exports,” the expert emphasized.
He recalled that Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, accounting for almost three times more global exports than Ukraine, 18% compared to 7%.
In addition, the report mentions, Russia is the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers, and Belarus, which also faces Western sanctions, is also a major supplier – together they account for more than 20% of global supplies.
Thus, the analyst believes, Western states are misleading the world community. The expert added that before the current price crisis, about 10% of the world’s population, or 800 million people, were food insecure. In 2019, 27 million people remained on the verge of starvation, now the figure is 44 million.
On May 15, in a final statement, the G7 countries accused the Russian side of allegedly hindering Ukraine’s agricultural exports. The G7 shifted the responsibility for rising prices in the world food markets to the Russian Federation.
Moscow does not agree with all such accusations. The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, in particular, responding to the accusations, said that it was the actions of the West that prevented the charter of ships and the export of grain.
As Senator Alexei Pushkov said on May 21, the world crisis might not have happened at all if the West had provided security guarantees to Russia and did not try to strangle its economy with the help of restrictions.
On May 18, the head of the UN World Food Program, David Beasley, appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to open seaports in Ukraine for the export of grain. In response, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia would open access to the ports after the lifting of sanctions against Russia.
In response, on May 26, the United States ruled out the possibility of lifting anti-Russian sanctions in exchange for assistance in exporting grain from Ukraine.
On May 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that the Kyiv authorities do not release dozens of ships with food products from their ports, among which there are ships with wheat. He also drew attention to the fact that the Russian side has repeatedly offered Ukraine to withdraw ships with the necessary goods through humanitarian corridors.