Saturday June 4, 2022
The Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin who
is meeting African Union leaders, will tell them that Moscow is not to blame
for the growing food crisis affecting their continent.
State TV showed Putin greeting Senegalese President Macky
Sall, chairman of the AU, and Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the AU
Commission, at the start of talks in the southern Russian resort of Sochi on
Friday.
Russia’s army has seized much of Ukraine’s southern
coastline in the course of its 100-day war and its warships control access to
the country’s Black Sea ports. But it continues to blame Ukraine and the West
for the resulting halt in Ukrainian grain exports.
“With a high degree of probability and confidence, I can
assume that the president will give exhaustive explanations of his vision of
the situation with Ukrainian grain,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told
reporters.
“The president will tell our African friends the real state
of affairs,” Peskov said. “He will explain once again what is happening there,
who has mined the ports, what is needed for grain to go, that no one on the
Russian side is blocking these ports.”
African countries are acutely affected by the growing
crisis, which has sent prices of grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertiliser
soaring.
Russia and Ukraine account for nearly a third of global
wheat supplies, while Russia is also a key global fertiliser exporter and
Ukraine is a major exporter of corn and sunflower oil.
Moscow has blamed the situation on all the naval mines
floating near Ukrainian ports and on Western sanctions which are hitting its
own grain and fertiliser exports because of the impact on shipping, banking and
insurance.
Russia has said it is ready to allow vessels carrying food
to leave Ukraine in return for the lifting of some sanctions, a proposal that
Ukraine has described as “blackmail”.
In opening comments at Friday’s meeting, Putin made no
reference to the food crisis but spoke in general terms of Moscow’s desire to
develop ties with Africa, saying trade turnover had risen by more than 34
percent in the first few months of this year.