In Russia-Ukraine war, Putin has a new weapon: Food

In Russia-Ukraine war, Putin has a new weapon: food. The Russian leader holds grain hostage as countries in Africa fear famine.

Update (June 28, 10:50 a.m. ET): This piece has been updated throughout to reflect the G-7's pledge of $4.5 billion in aid to address the global food crisis.

A frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding Ukrainian agriculture hostage. He’s blockading Black Sea routes, bombing silos and infrastructure and otherwise manipulating Ukraine’s consumption and sale of wheat and other staples. It’s clear that, in his desperation, he is prepared to employ a new instrument of war that could devastate civilian populations: food.

Russia is attempting to remove a major source of Ukrainian trade and raise the cost of grain, while stepping in to provide purloined supplies to portions of the world desperate for wheat from whatever source. Thankfully at the G-7 summit on Tuesday, the U.S and Europe began to challenge Putin directly in his efforts to weaponize food.  

Leaders of the G-7 nations pledged to spend $4.5 billion to help alleviate the international food shortage fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is still no lifting of the Russian embargo or a stop to the hijacked loads of Ukraine’s grain that Russia has apparently been peddling to starving nations. But there will be far less motivation for Putin to withhold or purloin the vast stocks of grain that remain bottled up in mined Ukrainian ports or in silos that Russian missiles have attacked with impunity.  

The other prong of Russia’s weaponization of food is more malicious and complex — dribbling out precious grain supplies to willing, even eager nations, whose people may be on the brink of starvation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/russia-ukraine-war-putin-new-weapon-food-rcna35629

---