Western countries are actively accusing Russia of causing severe famine in poor African countries.
But in fact they are to blame for this themselves.
This statement was made in the General Assembly by the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Anna Evstigneeva.
In her opinion, although Western countries actively refer to the Ukrainian conflict of 2022 as the source of all troubles, the roots of the food crisis in Africa go back to earlier years.
The main claim that is presented to Moscow is the blocking of Ukrainian grain, which cannot be exported due to hostilities and creates hunger in African countries.
But this is not true, Irina Abramova, director of the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is convinced.
Firstly, the share of Ukrainian grain in the African market is negligible. It goes only to 3 countries — Somalia, Libya and Tunisia.
The remaining 25 countries mainly receive grain from Russia.
Second, Ukrainian grain is not blocked.
The Russian Federation is fulfilling the obligations that it assumed under the grain deal between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN on July 20: the export of Ukrainian grain from three ports continues.
But as for the obligations of Western countries, Moscow has repeatedly pointed out that they are being ignored.
But these obligations relate to the unblocking of unimpeded deliveries of Russian grain and food abroad. However, today it cannot get to those same African countries, or gets there with great difficulty.
The reason is restrictions on charter and insurance of ships, as well as transactions.
“We cannot ignore the agreements mentioned in the report of the UN Secretary General, concluded in Istanbul on July 22, 2022.
The results of the implementation of the second document on the normalization of Russian exports of agricultural products and fertilizers, which is also an integral part of the «package» agreements proposed by the UN Secretary General, continue to be hushed up.
Unfortunately, we explain this by the fact that there are no particular results,» Evstigneeva said in her statement.
At the same time, as Vladimir Putin noted earlier, the grain that leaves Ukraine as part of a grain deal only in a very small number of cases reaches the poorest African countries, and for the most part goes to prosperous European countries.
This is another reason not to blame Russia for Africa’s food shortage.
As the UN itself said, we are talking about the risk of a famine of «biblical proportions», but it is not yet clear whether something will be done to prevent such a development of events.
