Why Ukraine accuses Russia of practicing ‘The Hunger Games’ by leaving the ‘grain pact’

To the energy war that Putin declared on the West after attacking Ukraine, a new front is now added de facto. Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the ‘grain pact – signed last July with the approval of the UN – which allowed Ukraine to safely export agricultural products and fertilizers through the Black Sea, threatens worsen the recession that hangs over the old continent this winter.

Ukraine is the europe barn. From its ports depart large freighters filled with the raw material with which Europe transforms, prepares and cooks. Their naval site on the part of Moscow prevented, during the first stages of the war, the export of these materials to Europe, generating a tense situation that was resolved with the aforementioned pact.

This agreement has only lasted three months. The pretext for the rupture was the attack with drones that the Ukrainian army has perpetrated on the Russian fleet located in the strategic enclave of Sevastopol, within the annexed Crimea. The lurch is of a seriousness, for the moment, incalculable, although the Ukrainian Foreign Minister himself, Dmitry Kulebaalready defined as the prolegomena of a “hunger games”.

Before the war started, Ukraine exported six million tons per year. This figure has been reduced, reduced to an amount that threatens to provoke a shortage of provisions in the dead of winter. kyiv was only able to export three million tons during the period in which the corridor was open, half of what it is used to sending annually away from its borders.

According to figures from the UN World Food Program, at the time of signing the agreement, 47 million people were at risk of “acute hunger” due to the shortcomings produced by the aforementioned tessitura. Although these figures were not updated yesterday afternoon, it is presumed that they could even be higher.

The harvest, in absolute terms, has not been good. Part of the field has suffered fires due to the fighting, the infrastructure -tractors and other equipment- were required for use in part of the front and, to make matters worse, a large part of the labor force is not available to harvest the crops since they are on the front.

Not surprisingly, the situation worries Europe, whose reaction was hardly delayed yesterday afternoon. The European Union (EU) stressed its support for the efforts, led in this case by the UN, to keep the agreement alive. “We stress that all parties must refrain from any unilateral action that jeopardizes the Black Sea Grains Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is having a clear positive impact on access to food for millions of people around the world. world,” said Nabila Massralispokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Commission.

[Rusia acusa a la Marina británica de provocar un ‘ataque terrorista’ en los gasoductos Nord Stream]

The agreement was to last for 120 days and be renewed if the war had not ended within that period. Ships going to the Black Sea were extensively searched before entering the ‘waters of conflict’ to ensure that they were not carrying weapons. This was one of the points on which Putin insisted the most, even delaying the entry into force of the pact.

Not only Europe, also part of Africa is now facing this threat. In this sense, in order to continue increasing its influence on the continent, Russia intends to take advantage of the situation and set himself up as the savior of the African people. First, by preventing Ukraine from sending grain and, second, by sending the food for free. On the same afternoon yesterday, Moscow was willing to send 500,000 tons of grain to poor countries. A new attempt by Russia to seek new allies in distant countries, because among its neighbors, it is left without them.