Putinwarns West to stop arming Ukraine
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has told French President Emmanuel Macron that the West must stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, during their first phone call for a month.
Putin accused Ukraine of committing atrocities, and urged the West to stop them by withholding arms, according to the Kremlin’s account of the conversation yesterday.
Macron decided last week to resume his regular dialogue with Putin, after suspending it following the discovery of the massacre of Ukrainian civilians by occupying Russian troops in Bucha.
‘‘The Russian side is still open to dialogue,’’ but Kyiv was not ready for ‘‘serious work’’ on peace talks, Putin told Macron, according to the Russian version.
Russian forces yesterday began storming the steel mill containing the last pocket of resistance in the eastern city of Mariupol, just as scores of civilians evacuated from the bombed-out plant reached relative safety and told of two months of days and nights filled with dread and despair from constant shelling.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said Russian aircraft and artillery had hit hundreds of targets across Ukraine during the day, including troop strongholds, command posts, artillery positions, fuel and ammunition depots, and radar equipment. Ukrainian authorities said the Russians also attacked at least half a dozen railway stations.
■ The United States will put a spotlight on the impact of the war in Ukraine and other conflicts on the diminishing availability of food and rising prices at two United Nations events later this month, amid fears of increasing hunger and starvation in many countries.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will chair a ministerial meeting on food insecurity across the globe on May 18. The US holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month, and on May 19 Blinken will chair a meeting where its 15 members ‘‘will consider steps we need to take to make sure increasing food insecurity does not drive new conflicts, instability, particularly in fragile states’’.
Ukraine used to be a breadbasket for the developing world, but since the Russian invasion in February the country’s crucial ports have been blocked, civilian infrastructure and grain silos have been destroyed, and desperate hunger situations in Africa and the Middle East are getting even more dire.
Russia and Ukraine together produce 30% of the world’s wheat supply and 20% of its corn, and export about three-quarters of the world’s sunflower seed oil. Some 30 million tonnes of grain bound for export are unable to be shipped because of the war. The conflict has devastated countries like Egypt, which normally gets 85% of its grain from Ukraine.
UN World Food Programme executive director David Beasley said it was was feeding 125 million people before the Russian invasion, and had been forced to start cutting rations because of rising food, fuel and shipping costs. The WFP had been buying 50% of its grain for needy people from Ukraine.