EU: RUSSIA’S BLOCKADE OF UKRAINE IS A ‘WAR CRIME’
Halt on exports of grain threatens hunger, famine
The Russian blockade that has stopped Ukraine from exporting its vast storehouses of grain and other goods, threatening starvation in distant corners of the globe, is a “war crime,” the European Union’s top foreign policy official declared Monday.
The remarks by the official, Josep Borrell Fontelles, were among the strongest language from a Western leader in describing the Kremlin’s tactics to subjugate Ukraine nearly four months after it invaded, and with no end to the conflict in sight.
Before Russian forces began pounding Ukraine in February, it was a major exporter of grain, cooking oil and fertilizer. But the Black Sea blockade — along with Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian farmland and its destruction of agricultural infrastructure — has brought exports to a near standstill. The latest blow came Monday, when, Ukrainian regional authorities said, a Russian missile razed a food warehouse in Odesa, Ukraine’s biggest Black Sea port.
Russia has denied responsibility for the collapse of Ukrainian exports. But Russia’s naval dominance of the Black Sea, Ukraine’s only maritime shipping route, gives the Russians significant leverage. President Vladimir Putin has said he will lift the blockade if sanctions, imposed by Western and other governments because of the war, are removed.
The drop in grain exports from Ukraine, once the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union, has contributed to a spike in global food prices. The United Nations has warned of hunger or even famine in some countries, particularly in Africa.
“You cannot use the hunger of people as a weapon of war,” Borrell said after arriving in Luxembourg for a meeting of EU foreign ministers. “Millions of tons of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world, people are suffering hunger. This is a real war crime, so I cannot imagine that this will last much longer.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine made the same point in a remote address to the African Union on Monday. Russia has deep ties to many African countries, which have been reluctant to criticize the invasion.
“If it was not for the Russian war against Ukraine, there simply would be no shortage in the food market,” Zelenskyy said. “If it was not for the Russian war, our farmers and agricultural companies could have ensured record harvests this year.”
The European Union, the United States and others are working on improving land routes for Ukraine exports, but Zelenskyy said that a “much smaller volume can be supplied via new routes, and it takes much more time.”