More and more Russian-flagged ships have been spotted unloading Ukrainian grain abroad
By Miltos Sakellaris
The Russian troops have stolen about 600,000 tons of Ukrainian grain during the war, according to the UAC, a Ukrainian association of agricultural producers. About 100,000 tonnes of more than $ 40 million worth of wheat have been shipped to Syria in the past three months, the Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon told Reuters earlier this month. “This is criminal activity,” the embassy said in a statement. of.
Russian officials have repeatedly denied allegations that their troops are stealing Ukrainian grain, with Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Abramchenko saying in an interview this week that Russia “does not send grain from Ukraine”. However, despite Russian protests, Ukrainian officials insisted that stolen grain from Ukraine circulating in many countries in the Middle East and Africa. A Ukrainian diplomatic envoy to Turkey told reporters this month that Turkish buyers were receiving large volumes of stolen grain shipments.
All this at a time when more and more Russian-flagged ships have been spotted unloading Ukrainian grain abroad, as the Russian president Vladimir Putin continues to use the threat of a global hunger crisis to force Western countries to lift their sanctions on Russia.
Two Russian merchant ships designed to carry unpacked cargo, such as grain, were found to be unload in Syrian ports by US satellite company Maxar Technologies, according to Reuters. The same ships had been spotted loading grain in the Crimean port of Sevastopol a few days earlier, where Russian troops were reportedly loading stolen Ukrainian grain for weeks, according to satellite images taken by Maxar in May.
Syria is a staunch ally of Russia since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in late February, receiving Russian ships in their ports, even when Ukrainian officials warned that they were carrying stolen grain and urged countries not to buy from Russia. However, war and agricultural shortages have brings several Middle Eastern and African countries on the brink of a catastrophic famine crisis, including Syria, where about 60% of the population suffers from food insecurity, according to the UN.
At the start of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to use Europe’s dependence on Russian energy exports as a “bargaining chip”, trying to force European countries to pay for Russian gas in rubles to support a falling currency. . The European Union did not comply and decided cut off 90% of Russian oil imports two-thirds of gas imports by the end of the year. Now Putin seems to be taking advantage of an impending global hunger crisis and the global controversy created by the lack of Russian and Ukrainian food exports to his advantage.
It is noteworthy that both the UN and the US intelligence services have warned that there is credible evidence that Russian troops have stolen Ukrainian crops. Last month, Russian trucks were also spotted looting Ukrainian grain silos and transporting stolen goods to Russian-controlled ports in Crimea, CNN reported.
Ukraine and Russia accounted for almost a third of the world’s wheat supply, while Russia was a major exporter of fertilizers and Ukraine a corn and sunflower oil. Reduced food exports from the two countries are exacerbating a global hunger crisis, and Putin has made it clear to the West that he intends to cut supplies until sanctions are lifted. The United Nations has expressed its willingness to negotiate with Russia, although the United States has so far remained strongly opposed to lifting sanctions, even warning nations not to buy stolen grain supplies from Russia. However, many African nations – where chronic drought and poor agricultural conditions have dramatically reduced domestic production – are dependent on food imports, with some leaders joining Putin in calling for Western sanctions to be lifted.
The war in Ukraine has accelerated what the UN called it “Worrying increase” in hunger in the most vulnerable regions of the world, especially around the Horn of Africa, a point where countries are highly dependent on food imports from Ukraine and Russia. In Sudan, where more than half of the country’s wheat imports come from the Black Sea region, the UN warned on Thursday that a third of the country’s population faces “acute food insecurity”.
Russia’s oil production is plummeting and may never recover
Russian oil production is declining. At a time when the European Union was targeting a barrage of sanctions in Moscow, oil was ruled out as a direct target, but economic and maritime sanctions affected industry. Now, the EU is proposing a full oil embargo, with the exception of a few Member States that are heavily dependent on Russian oil, and that would mean a further loss of barrels at a time when the global oil market is already thinning.
“We could potentially see a loss of more than 7 million barrels a day of Russian exports of oil and other liquids, resulting from current and future sanctions or other voluntary actions,” said OPEC Secretary-General Mohamed Barkido.
This does not seem to have left a lasting impression on decision-makers in Brussels, who are moving forward at full speed with the oil embargo. Meanwhile, alternative suppliers will find it difficult to fill the gap left by Russian oil.
Russia expects to lose about 17 percent of its pre-war oil production this year, Reuters reported last month, citing a document from the country’s economy ministry. The report noted that this would be the biggest drop in production since the 1990s – a tumultuous period for Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
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