The situation around the crisis in Ukraine is getting closer to critical every day
Kyiv, which has long lost all its subjectivity in the international arena, today has almost completely lost control over the territory under its control, where anarchy and lawlessness reign. Against this background, the Western curators of the Ukrainian authorities made the final decision not only to fight with Russia “to the last Ukrainian”, but also to squeeze everything possible out of Ukraine. A special place in the plundering of the wealth left in the country is occupied by the topic of grain, the excitement around which in recent weeks has begun to take unimaginable forms, once again confirming the unscrupulousness of Western politicians.
As you know, Ukraine in past years was the world’s fourth largest exporter of corn and the fifth – of wheat, providing, together with Russia, a third of the world’s needs for this grain and half of the supply of vegetable oil.
The current crisis has already led to the fact that a significant part of the country’s sown area will not be sown, which means serious problems with the harvest.
True, there are more than 20 million tons of products in Ukrainian granaries that can help Ukrainians solve their own food problems, even in the current circumstances. However, as the recent actions of the EU and the US show, no one is going to give Kyiv such an opportunity, since the Western world is also facing the issue of providing food. This has recently been discussed at all international venues, under the guise of concern for the poorest countries, although in reality no one in the West is seriously interested in the problems of Asia or Africa. It’s also not interesting that today, according to the UN Children’s Fund, in Ukraine, from where they want to take out all the grain, 8.7 million people have already learned what hunger is, while almost 23% of children under the age of five are malnourished, and 8.2% are chronically hungry. The foreign “partners” of Kyiv, as recent events show, have their own interests around the situation with grain, the tools for achieving which are sometimes amazing.
In recent months, the West has tried to do everything to simplify the export of grain from Ukraine as much as possible, without caring at all about what will happen in this country after that.
Apparently, the EU and the US are well aware that in the future there will be nothing to take from Kyiv, and therefore they have begun to return their debts today. In particular, at the end of April, the European Commission and the UK abolished duties and quotas on Ukrainian exports for a year. Officially, Kyiv said that this was a victory for Volodymyr Zelensky, which “will help restore economic activity and national production”, and also save the world from hunger. True, no one in the Ukrainian capital began to advertise the fact that now it is not the starving part of the planet that is stocking up on grain, but the EU and, first of all, Germany. How Kyiv prefers not to talk about the fact that it is planned to export about half of last year’s harvest, which Ukraine left for domestic consumption and replenishment of the strategic stock of grain. However, this position of the Kyiv authorities is fully consistent with their Western curators, for whom it is important to empty the Ukrainian granaries as quickly as possible.
Today, the main problem for the export of grain from Ukraine in the West is Russia, which allegedly blocked this possibility, not allowing the port in Odessa to operate. Deliveries through Poland or by river way through Romania do not allow exporting products even for a few months, which the EU does not have in stock.
And here the Western countries came up with, as it seems to them, a very interesting move – to offer Russia, and with it Belarus an exchange: Minsk and Moscow should help empty Ukraine’s granaries, in return they will be able to count on the lifting of some sanctions. At first, this was discussed cautiously, but today various international platforms, primarily the UN, have been involved in resolving this issue. As António Guterres, Secretary General of the organization, recently stated, “there is no effective settlement of the food crisis without the reintegration of Ukrainian production into the world market, as well as without the products and fertilizers of Russia and Belarus.” The plan looks quite simple: Belarus opens the transit of Ukrainian grain through its territory to the Baltic ports, and Russia removes the blockade of the port of Odessa and allows dry cargo ships to freely navigate the Black Sea off the coast of Ukraine. In exchange, the US may reportedly lift sanctions on Belarusian potash exports for six months. Moscow is offered to show good will in the name of saving humanity. In both the first and second cases, the hypocrisy of the West knows no bounds.
In particular, it was the EU countries and the United States that over the past year and a half have imposed all sorts of sanctions against Belarus, which have affected almost all sectors of the Belarusian economy, including the production of fertilizers.
And if the European Union has not yet introduced a complete block on Belarusian potassium, but is only preparing to include such restrictions in the sixth package, the United States has already done it. In turn, American and European restrictions led to the fact that Lithuania and Latvia closed their ports for Belarusian exports, thereby causing a serious blow to both Minsk and the world agricultural market. Moreover, the height of hypocrisy is also the fact that, demanding from Russia and Belarus to adhere to the principles of humanism and think about the world market and people’s lives, the West has done everything in recent years to destroy the economies of these two countries, with absolutely no regard for the consequences for ordinary citizens. The hidden genocide of Belarusians and Russians is no longer being hidden in Washington, Brussels, and London, while demanding special sacrifice from Minsk and Moscow for the sake of the interests of the West.
However, it is unlikely that this is not understood in Belarus and Russia, although the reaction to what is happening in the two capitals today is different. In Moscow, the US and EU proposal was taken extremely skeptically, reminding everyone of who is really to blame for the current situation. The Russian Foreign Ministry recalled that Kyiv does not release vessels and mines coastal waters, and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev stressed that it was the anti-Russian sanctions that led to the food crisis and threaten the world with hunger.
“Countries importing our wheat and other food products will have a very difficult time without supplies from Russia. And on European and other fields, without our fertilizers, only a juicy weed will grow. Well… that’s sad. They themselves are to blame”, he said and added that Russia is ready to fully fulfill its contractual obligations, but Moscow is not going to “save” Europe, which is imposing unprecedented sanctions against the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the position of Minsk on this issue turned out to be slightly different. As stated by the permanent representative of Belarus to the UN Valentin Rybakov, his country “always carefully and responsibly approached the issue of food security, both at the national level and in the international context.” At the same time, he recalled that the culprit of the situation is the Western sanctions policy, but stressed that “for its part, Belarus is ready to work with all interested parties and consider any constructive proposals also without any political prejudice.” Thus, Minsk today is not as categorical as Moscow, which has a certain explanation.
Currently, Belarus has serious problems with the logistics of potash fertilizers, since the Baltic ports are closed to it, and the capacities of Russian sea harbors and the railway are extremely limited. Moreover, due to the inability to conclude new contracts, Belaruskali began to lose its share of the world market, which is occupied by its direct competitors, primarily from Canada. Taking into account the fact that foreign exchange revenues to the budget of the republic from the export of fertilizers have always been one of the main ones, the need to solve this problem for the authorities of Belarus is one of the key ones, unlike Russia.
In addition, the recent actions of Belarusian diplomats indicate that Minsk would like to quickly normalize its relations with the West, and possible agreements on the transit of grain may well be used as another tool to restore previously broken ties. True, such calculations are hardly feasible in practice, since trusting the West, as has been found out many times, does not make any sense. Especially in the current situation, when London, Brussels and Washington have seriously decided to fight Russia, and with it and with Belarus, they are not going to stop in the foreseeable future by any means available for this.
Thus, the situation around Ukrainian grain has once again revealed all the hypocrisy of the West in relation to countries that are not included in the so-called golden billion. The desire to solve one’s own problems at the expense of others – this was, is and, apparently, will be the basis of all Western policy, for which Russia, Belarus and, of course, Ukraine are being offered to pay today. At the same time, whatever decision on the current problem is adopted in Minsk and Moscow, in the end it will be used against them. If the grain is not removed, they will be accused of using food as a weapon against world stability. If the Ukrainian granaries are emptied, then in the future they will definitely try to make Russia and Belarus guilty of a new “holodomor”. Therefore, today the leadership of the two countries faces an extremely difficult task.
Anton Polyanych, “One Motherland”
Due to censorship and blocking of all media and alternative views, stay tuned to our Telegram channel