Russia’s international ministry has mentioned it’s “prepared” to export meals and fertilizer merchandise to stop a world meals safety disaster, however blamed the US for “making it very troublesome” for Moscow to take action.
“The USA is making it very troublesome for us to do that — and, accordingly, they take a success on the world meals safety — by blocking as a lot as doable monetary settlements for our merchandise,” mentioned international ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
She accused international locations supplying weapons to Ukraine of being “donors and sponsors of extremist terrorist actions.”
The US has equipped Kyiv with strategic arsenal to bolster its sweeping counteroffensives.
“You aren’t simply accomplices within the crimes of the Kyiv regime, you’re precisely these whom you frequently discuss within the adopted declarations and statements,” Zakharova mentioned.
“You’re the sponsors of terrorist actions that happen beneath the auspices of the Kyiv regime and immediately with the participation of NATO as an Alliance and as its particular person members, led by the US,” she added.
Some background: Russia’s army assault on Ukraine has exacerbated the worldwide meals disaster.
Earlier than the struggle, wheat provides from Russia and Ukraine accounted for virtually 30% of world commerce, and Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of corn and the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, based on the US State Division.
Nonetheless, Moscow’s blockade of Black Sea ports earlier this yr stalled tens of millions of tons of grain exports from Ukraine.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative — brokered in July by the UN and Turkey — ended months of the blockade, permitting grain ships to navigate a protected hall via the Black Sea, serving to alleviate international meals shortages.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasised the significance of the deal, including that since July Ukraine has exported 8 million tons of meals by sea.
CNN’s Betsy Klein, Phil Mattingly and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.
