US missiles could end Russian food blockade
THE US is considering sending Ukraine advanced anti-ship missiles to sink Russian war vessels in the Black Sea and end the Kremlin’s naval food blockade.
US officials said sea-skimming Harpoon and Naval Strike Missiles (NSMS) could be dispatched either directly or by European allies equipped with them.
A handful of nations were said to be open to sending Harpoons, which have a range of almost 200 miles, but there was hesitation over being the first to do so amid concerns over escalation.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has been blocking Ukrainian ports to stop grain and other produce leaving the so-called “breadbasket of Europe”, triggering a global food crisis.
The UN urged Russia to end the blockade and warned that rising global food prices could lead to “mass hunger and famine”. Officials in the key Ukrainian port of Odesa said Mr Putin was trying to starve the world’s poorest people. Ala Stoyanova, the deputy governor of the city, said: “It is his aim, I think, to make these poor countries starve from hunger without this grain. When he blocks our ports, by this means he is blackmailing the world.”
Boris Johnson branded the blockade “craven and reckless” and said he had “significant concerns”. In a call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, yesterday, they discussed how to reopen “critical sea and land supply” chains.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now a senior security official, threatened to continue constricting food supplies if the West continues to slap Moscow with sanctions.
“Otherwise, there’s no logic: on the one hand, insane sanctions are being imposed against us, on the other hand, they are demanding food supplies,” he wrote on the Telegram app. “Things don’t work like that, we’re not idiots.”
About 20 Russian Navy vessels, including submarines, are in the Black Sea, and Ukraine has pleaded for antiship weaponry. One “well-stocked” ally was said to be considering sending the missiles first and, once it did, others may follow, US officials said. A Downing Street source said the UK was committed to sending more “shore-to-ship” missiles to Ukraine, and believed they would be required to resolve the blockade. However, a government source confirmed Britain is not considering sending the Harpoon missiles.
Previously, there have been US concerns about retaliation, and that anti-ship missile equipment could be captured by the Russian military. Bryan
Clark, a naval expert at the Hudson Institute in Washington, said sending less than two dozen missiles could cause Russia to lift the blockade.
The development came as Joe Biden publicly dismissed objections by Turkey to the attempts of Finland and Sweden to join Nato.
America’s top general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke by telephone with his Russian counterpart, General Valery Gerasimov, for the first time since the invasion.
And the World Health Organisation urged Russia to ensure safe access to areas of Ukraine it controls. It came as the US Senate approved nearly $40billion (£32billion) in military, economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
A Russian soldier reaches out to make contact with a bear at the zoo in Ukraine’s overwhelmed port city of Mariupol, where fighting goes on across the country.