Unable to dispose of the more than twenty tons of grain that accumulate in its ports – the Russian Navy continues to block the Black Sea and the coasts continue to be mined to prevent attacks -, Ukraine is facing a new setback these days. According to , Russian attacks on farmland have multiplied so far this summer, causing estimates of the harvest of grain, oil and other essential goods to drop to 60% of what was harvested last year. .
The consequences of these problems for the so-called “breadbasket of Europe” go beyond its borders and could lead to a real global catastrophe. Of course, Zelenski’s country would be on the verge of economic collapse, since the export of wheat, flour and corn represents a significant percentage of its annual GDP… but a good part of the planet would be directly faced with a life or death situation. Europe can access these goods by road or rail, but what about Africa or Asia, which are so dependent on Ukrainian agriculture?
The The UN already warned in June that the situation in the Black Sea could lead the world to the worst famine in a hundred years and recently Josep Borrell himself, on behalf of the European Union, lamented that Putin was using hunger as a weapon of war. Unfortunately, he doesn’t look like the Kremlin cares in the least. Rather, hunger has become one of its great geopolitical assets.
View of a farm field on a highway in the outskirts of kyiv.
EFE
Putin’s obsession is to restore Russia to the international status that the Soviet Union was entitled to for seventy years. This can be done militarily -at the moment, without much success- or politically. The plan for it is drown the stomach of much of Africa and Asia… and at the same time repeat to those countries that NATO is to blame for prolonging the war and preventing the just and ancient aspirations of Russia. Later, it would be time to sell them their own wheat at an affordable price.
The reason to fight for the south
Of course, it seems like a Machiavellian plan, but we are talking about Putin, the “polonium wizard”, so we can expect anything. The objective is sabotage next fall’s crops and prevent what little can be salvaged from leaving Ukraine. Turkey has tried to mediate in the conflict, aware of the problems that this could cause it -not only in terms of its own consumption but as a country almost bordering the European Union and therefore receiving immigration-, but not even the privileged relationship of Erdogan with Putin has been of some use.
[La pequeña Liza paseaba por Vinnytsia con su madre… hasta que Rusia bombardeó su barrio]
The solutions seem complicated. From the diplomatic point of view, it would be necessary to give up the sanctions for Russia to give up its blockade. looks like a quid pro quo In all rules. Unable to surrender Ukraine, Putin intends to surrender Europe from a commercial point of view. That is why the timid advance that the Ukrainian army is achieving in the south of the country is so important. Not only is there a good part of the most fertile land in the country – for example, the province of Zaporizhia, controlled almost entirely by Russia – but also access to ports such as Kherson, Melitopol or Mariúpol itself, already almost within HIMARS’ shot .
Taking back the south is right now Zelensky’s top priority, almost above holding what remains of the Donetsk region. He knows, from the experience of 2014 and the subsequent eight years of war, that advancing in the east is extremely expensive, even though Russia has concentrated up to 50% of the infantry deployed in Ukraine there. In kyiv, they trust that Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Siversk, Barvinkove or Artemivsk will resist almost by inertia. Hence, its missiles land en masse in the south and not, for example, in Izium, Russia’s axis of operations in its offensive on Donbas.
[Por qué los blogueros militares afines al Kremlin se han convertido en una amenaza para Putin]
The gas cut and energy problems for Europe
In any case, hunger is not the only vital factor that Putin wants to use as blackmail. In France they are convinced that Russia is going to cut off gas to Europe, a fear that is shared in Germany, a country completely dependent on cheap Russian gas and the traditional economic locomotive of the continent. If Putin gives the order, he will lose many millions of dollars along the way… but it will force Central Europe to be very cold and look for other sources of energy, which is, in turn, an added problem to its fragile economies.
If we add to this the image that Russia has of the West as a land of cowardly, decadent men, incapable of the slightest suffering and obsessed with comfort, it is not surprising that Putin thinks we will be easy to convince to change our commitment to Ukraine. In fact, the European Union’s decision to force Lithuania to allow the passage of goods to Kaliningrad is a very bad sign in that regard.
Unexploded shell in a wheat field in Mikolaiv, Ukraine.
Russia knows that if causes famine in Africa and Asia, although it later offers to mitigate it, the European borders will be filled with immigrants seeking survival. To this should be added a rise in the price of basic food products -raising inflation even more- and the obligation to look for alternative sources of energy if we do not want to experience considerable cold in autumn and winter. It is also a problem that affects us all. It is useless to take refuge in the fact that Spain hardly buys gas from Russia or that it has enough reserves if Germany drags the rest of the European Union into a recession.
What will be Europe’s response to this challenge? Some countries are already implementing energy saving measures – not ours, where that debate does not even exist – but we must bear in mind that gas, like wheat, is only part of a geopolitical plan that is too complex to deactivate in the few months left until fall. In that sense, time is ticking on Russia’s side. As long as she can keep blocking the Black Sea and restricting gas, the West is in serious trouble. One option is to increase military aid to Ukraine, but here, as usual, it seems that the United States is the only country that takes the war question seriously.
The two other remaining options are to surrender, lift the sanctions and look the other way, which would be a disaster in the medium and long term… or trust that we will be able to withstand the crisis better than Russia itself. In other words, expect an implosion similar to that of the Soviet Union due to the limitations on trade, the severe sanctions … and the enormous military spending on the war in Ukraine. Europe can only win by having more patience than Moscow, but for that it must be aware that months of hunger, violence on the borders and cold, very cold, are coming. That is the price of freedom right now. Putin doesn’t think we’re going to pay for it, but maybe we’ll give him another surprise.
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