Post Date: Post Date – 11:45 PM, Sunday – October 30
(AP Photo) U.S. President Joe Biden warned that global hunger could increase as Russia suspends a U.N.-brokered deal to allow ships carrying Ukrainian grain to pass safely.
Kyiv: U.S. President Joe Biden has warned that global hunger could rise as Russia suspends a U.N.-brokered deal to allow ships carrying Ukrainian grain to pass safely.
“It’s really outrageous,” Biden said Saturday in a speech in Wilmington, Delaware. “There is no value in what they did. The UN negotiated the deal and that should be the end of it.”
Biden, speaking hours after Russia announced it would immediately stop participating in the deal, said Ukraine carried out a drone strike Saturday on ships of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of occupied Crimea. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying Russia mishandled its own weapons.
The Food Initiative has allowed more than 9 million tonnes of food from 397 ships to safely leave Ukrainian ports since it was signed in July, and the UN chief on Friday urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the pact when it expires in late November. According to the United Nations, the grain deal has succeeded in lowering global food prices, which have fallen by about 15 percent from their March peak.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the decision predictable and said Russia had been deliberately exacerbating the food crisis since September. Currently, about 176 grain-laden ships are banned from sailing from Ukrainian ports, he said.
“This is food for more than 7 million consumers. … Why should a handful of people somewhere in the Kremlin decide whether there will be food on the table of Egyptians or Bangladeshis?” he said Saturday in his nightly address to the nation. .
Other Ukrainian officials were more drastic, with one claiming that Russia had started a real-life “Hunger Games” for the world’s poor.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said a ship carrying 40,000 tonnes of grain bound for Ethiopia under a United Nations aid programme could not leave Ukraine on Sunday because of a trade suspension by Russia.
Russia’s actions are facing international condemnation. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, urged Russia on Twitter on Sunday to reverse its decision. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said the world body was in contact with Russian authorities about the decision and it was crucial that all parties refrain from any action that would hinder the food initiative.
The Institute for War Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said Russia has been setting conditions for withdrawing from the pact for some time. Even if Ukraine did order an attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet on Saturday, it was commensurate with Russia’s heavy bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets and energy infrastructure in recent weeks, the institute said.
Earlier this month, Moscow intensified missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s power stations, waterworks and other critical infrastructure, damaging 40 percent of Ukraine’s power system and forcing the government to implement rolling blackouts. The mayor of Kyiv said the power system in the Ukrainian capital was operating in “emergency mode”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state television on Sunday that the Kremlin said it was ready for peace talks but stressed that it should be held with Washington, which Russia sees as the “mastermind” of Kyiv.
“Obviously, the decisive vote belongs to Washington … it is impossible to talk about certain things, such as with Kyiv,” he said. Such a request is unlikely to be accepted by the Ukrainian or U.S. governments. As diplomats focus on ships full of grain, Russian missile strikes have continued to hit key front-line hotspots in Ukraine.
The Russians have shelled seven areas in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, killing at least five civilians and injuring nine others, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
In the eastern Donetsk region, fighting continued near the cities of Bakhmut and Avdivka, with shelling of eight cities and villages.
In addition, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kirilenko said that in areas reoccupied by Ukraine, residents are still searching for the bodies of killed civilians.
“In the past 24 hours alone, we have found the bodies of abandoned Ukrainian civilians in three uninhabited towns and villages,” Kirilenko said. “The Russians ignore all principles of war. Every week we find civilians personal graves or mass graves.”
Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy also said on Sunday that Russian troops were exploiting the territory they left behind at twice the density of the first months of the war.
“In the recently occupied territories, almost everything has been mined,” Monastirsky told Ukrainian television.
A power outage was reported in the occupied Ukrainian city of Enehodar, home to Europe’s largest Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Ukrainian and Russian officials have blamed each other for the shelling that caused the blackout.
