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A chorus of international condemnation echoed Sunday over Russia’s sudden decision to halt participation in a grain export deal with Ukraine, raising fears of a global food crisis.
The Russian Defense Ministry, citing an alleged Ukraine drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea, announced the suspension Saturday. Ukraine denied the attack, blaming Russia for mishandling its own weapons.
„Russia is blackmailing the world with hunger,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles implored Russia to rethink the move. „The EU urges Russia to revert its decision,“ he tweeted Sunday.
President Joe Biden weighed in Saturday, calling the decision „outrageous“ and expressing concern that global hunger could increase. “There’s no merit to what they’re doing. The U.N. negotiated that deal and that should be the end of it,“ he said.
The International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid organization, estimates 345 million people will encounter acute food insecurity this year.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of „again weaponizing food in the war it started, directly impacting low- and middle-income countries and global food prices and exacerbating already dire humanitarian crises and food insecurity.“
The suspension had an immediate impact: A ship with 40,000 tons of grains bound for Ethiopia could not leave Ukraine Sunday, said Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure.
More than 9 million tons of grain in 397 ships have safely left Ukrainian ports since the deal was signed in July after much wrangling, lifting a Russian blockade in the Black Sea that kept Ukrainian cargo ships docked. The agreement, due to come up for renewal Nov. 19, has lowered global food prices, which have fallen by about 15% from their peak in March, according to the United Nations. Turkey and the U.N., which brokered the deal, are trying to revive it.
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Latest developments:
►Russia requested a meeting Monday of the U.
