Russia Now Accused of Looting Ukrainian Grain Supply
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a messy one, with scattered strategies layered over a number of simple failures and morale so poor that some Russian soldiers have begun shooting themselves in their legs to get sent back home.
And all for what? No one really knows. The Kremlin’s “justifications” for the invasion have been anything but, with a vast number of different nonsensical narratives having been posited by Vladimir Putin in recent weeks.
Now, in yet another strange twist to the tale, it appears as though the Russian army is raiding Ukraine’s national grain supply.
Russia has been accused of stealing “several hundred thousand tonnes” of grain in parts of Ukraine it controls
Reuters reported the news.
Ukraine’s deputy agriculture minister minister, Taras Vysotskiy, made the accusation on Saturday, per Reuters. He said that a further 1.5 million tonnes of grain in Russian-controlled territories of Ukraine could also be stolen.
Officials were incensed by the activity.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry first made the claim on Thursday in a tweet. “We demand that Russia stop illicit grain stealing, unblock Ukrainian ports, restore freedom of navigation, and allow trade ships to pass,” it said.
The ramifications could turn global.
It added that the looting of grain stands to worsen “the world’s food security.”
Ukraine is suffering from a growing humanitarian crisis, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More than 1.7 billion are at risk of poverty and famine, the United Nations and Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry stressed, due to disruptions in the food production system caused by Russia.
Ukraine supplies a rather large percentage of the world’s grain supply as well, and the theft could be an attempt to lessen the impact of international sanctions against Russia while also disrupting the global commerce chain.