Ukrainian cereals
“Russia is increasingly looking to target civilian ships in the Black Sea”
The head of the British government spoke with the Ukrainian president, after the abandonment by Moscow of the agreement on cereals and the recent Russian strikes in Odessa.
PostedJuly 25, 2023, 6:12 PM
In one year, the grain agreement had allowed the release of nearly 33 million tons of grain from Ukrainian ports.
Reuters
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday called any Russian attempt to block the shipment of grain out of Ukraine ‘unacceptable’, with London saying Russia risks targeting civilian ships in the black sea.
“Completely unacceptable”
“Any Russian attempt to stop grain from leaving Ukraine is completely unacceptable,” Rishi Sunak, renamed X, said on Twitter after speaking with the Ukrainian president. Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Prime Minister quoted a message in which his Foreign Minister James Cleverly said that the United Kingdom, an early supporter of Kiev in the face of the invasion launched by Moscow, “believes that Russia risks increasing its campaign to destroy Ukraine’s food exports by targeting civilian ships in the Black Sea”. “Russia should stop taking the world’s food supply hostage and return to the agreement” on cereals, continued James Cleverly, denouncing “inconceivable behavior”.
Abandonment of a crucial agreement
In an account of the meeting between Rishi Sunak and Volodymyr Zelensky, Downing Street explains that Rishi Sunak stressed that “Russia was increasingly looking to target merchant ships in the Black Sea” and that the “UK is monitoring the situation closely” with its partners.
Russia has abandoned a crucial agreement which has allowed Ukraine since the summer of 2022 to export, including to Africa, its cereals via the Black Sea, despite the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports. In one year, this agreement had enabled nearly 33 million tonnes of cereals to leave Ukrainian ports, helping to stabilize world food prices and avert the risk of shortages. Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting his African partners in St. Petersburg from Thursday for a Russia-Africa summit, a way to display an understanding despite the situation in Ukraine and the end of the grain agreement, a source of concern for the continent.
Shelled port areas
After withdrawing from the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports in mid-July, Russia began to shell the port areas of the city of Odessaa strategic Black Sea port.
kyiv accuses Putin of “spitting” in front of the world
In New York, the British ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, noted to the press that Russia had “increased its attacks on grain storage in Odessa”, as well as “through Ukraine”, including to the border with Romania. She denounced the “absurdity” of Moscow’s use of heavy weapons “to destroy food”, seeing it as proof that “the instrumentalization of the world’s food supply is a calculated element of Russia’s strategy”, which “demonstrates” that it “does not care at all about populations across Africa, Asia and Latin America facing famine, drought”.
(AFP)Show comments
2023-07-25 16:12:16
#Russia #increasingly #target #civilian #ships #Black #Sea
