The world community is balancing between two strategies for relations with the Russian Federation/Channel 24 collage
The agreements reached in Istanbul with the assistance of the UN Secretary General are not a roadmap for solving the grain crisis. Due to the lack of implementation guarantees. Moreover, guarantees are basically impossible in conditions of aggression.
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Evidence of this is the rocket attack on the Odessa commercial port on the morning of July 23, carried out after the signing of the agreements. Without real tools, the document will remain a piece of paper stained with Russian ink.
The world community is balancing between two strategies for Russia's relations, including on the issue of the food crisis. The author of the Channel 24 website told the Spanish Elperiodico about this.
One of the strategies is to crush the “bunker” in fights without rules, the second is to pacify
Hawksinsist on providing assistance to Kyiv, sufficient for a radical change in the situation and the subsequent military defeat of the Russian Federation. Their logic is that a defeated Kremlin will have to negotiate from a position of weakness. The supporters of this concept include the United States, Britain, Poland and the Baltic countries.
Pigeons offer to maneuver according to the situation. But their options include concessions from Ukraine. First of all, of course, territorial. Their arguments are “to save Putin's face by avoiding the humiliation of the Russian Federation, since a nuclear state cannot be defeated.” These narratives are from Paris, to a lesser extent from Berlin, and from a number of their smaller satellites.
The consensus of key players is possible only with the first option:
- Hawks are tough in their positions in Ukraine.
- Doves – will maneuver taking into account the political context. They will refuse to appease the aggressor if they find the scale of the expected risks unacceptable. This means that they will stop at a less expensive option, consisting in the economic destruction of the Russian Federation and inflicting military defeat on it.
The actions of the Kremlin, provoking a global food crisis and mass starvation, are a key factor in determining such a construction. The risks of this hybrid operation of the Russian Federation significantly exceed the cost of weapons needed by Ukraine to sterilize the bunker inmate.
Markers of such risks for the EU and the United States are a severe migration crisis, a sharp increase in the cost of humanitarian aid to third countries, subsidence of domestic social standards and political instability that opens the floodgates to radicals.
The European Commission already at the start of the food war had to allocate 600 million euros to mitigate its consequences. These funds will be sent to countries in Africa, the Caribbean as humanitarian aid (150 million euros), for the production and sustainability of food systems (350 million), macroeconomic support (100 million).
The extremely harsh statements of the EU leaders regarding Moscow's actions are explained by the understanding of the scale of the threat. According to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Borrell, Russia's blockade of Ukraine's grain exports and the destruction of infrastructure have led to a global food crisis.
This is a deliberate attempt to use food as weapons in war. This is a deliberate attempt to create world hunger in order to put pressure on the world, the EU and Ukraine,” said a top EU diplomat.
One of the resolutions of the EU summit contains a demand for the Russian Federation to stop attacking Ukrainian agricultural facilities, stealing grain and blocking ports. “Russia is using food as a weapon in the war against Ukraine. Moscow is responsible for provoking a food crisis on a global scale,” the EU stressed.
It is important to realize that Ukraine, as a representative of the TOP-3 exporters, provides grain to 400 million people all over the world. Due to the shortage of Ukrainian grain, world food prices are rising and the number of hungry people is increasing. According to UN Secretary General António Guterres, their number has already grown from 440 million to 1.6 billion. Another 250 million are on the verge of starvation.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Russian invasion has exacerbated the food crisis in the Middle East and North Africa. For example, Lebanon receives 80% of wheat from Ukraine, Libya – more than 40%, Yemen – 30%, Turkey – up to 90%. At the expense of Ukrainian wheat, the grain balances of Syria and Egypt are formed. All these countries will feel the disastrous consequences of the food blockade in the near future if Moscow's aggression cannot be stopped.
РФ deliberately loosens the logistics of the global food market. By blocking Ukrainian ports, destroying infrastructure, stealing or destroying export food stocks. The Kremlin's goal is to create the prerequisites for global hunger in third world countries, to drag the US and the EU into the crisis and distract them from Ukraine. And this is to achieve acceptable solutions for themselves in the war with Kyiv. Therefore, any actions of the Kremlin must be analyzed taking into account its base interests.
Moscow will raise the geopolitical stakes by blackmailing the world with global hunger and imposing its own options for ending the war. Without taking into account the national interests of Ukraine.
The logic and tools of the current crisis are reminiscent of Stalin's
For Russians, hunger is a familiar tool of war and a weapon of mass destruction. In Stalin's time, according to demographers, 3.9 million people were killed by famine in Ukraine. Today, Putin's goals have not changed. He sows hunger in other countries in order to destroy Ukrainians and break their will to freedom.
The Istanbul Agreement should be considered by Ukraine only as a situational tool for solving current problems. Only a few days remained for a real breakthrough of the blockade of ports. Up to 20 million tons of export grains of the past harvest worth up to $10 billion have been stored in Ukraine. 90% of them can only be exported by sea, due to the limited land and river logistics. A new harvest is being harvested in Ukraine, and it is critically important for us not to drown in internal logistics. Otherwise, global hunger will become not only tangible, but inevitable.
At the same time, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Infrastructure, three formally unblocked Black Sea ports will be able to export about 3 million tons of products per month. That is, you need at least six months to take everything out. But at the same time, issues with the companies that will provide the fleet and provide insurance services have not yet been resolved. CNN estimates that it will take several weeks to reach all the logistical details, create inspection teams and move ships.
This year, the fate of three crops is decided in Ukraine: last year's, which must be exported, this year, which will not be fully harvested due to hostilities, and the future, which farmers will not sow in the usual volumes, – emphasizes Igor Solovey, head of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.
To solve these three cases, it is necessary to force the Russian Federation to fully implement the agreement on unblocking Ukrainian ports. This requires consolidated actions of key players. With the obligatory involvement of the NATO Navy, which, quite opportunely, began international exercises in the Black Sea, and could have lingered in the region. Such a security factor would make it possible to avoid a new round of war, and with it an exacerbation of the migration crisis and colossal financial costs, which EU and US taxpayers are not yet aware of.
A demonstrative show of strength by the international community to the Kremlin in dealing with the food crisis will be the turning point of the war. The Russian Federation will cease to dominate the Black Sea after the emergence of a new entity – NATO. The presence of Alliance warships in the Black Sea, even formally ensuring the safety of transport ships, will limit the ability of the Russian Federation to launch missiles in Ukraine. This will significantly reduce the risks for Odessa, Nikolaev and the whole of Ukraine.
Obviously, the collective West will have to resolve the issue of the global food crisis, taking into account the interests of Ukraine. They must understand that Ukrainians will not exchange freedom for the satiety of the inhabitants of North Africa or the Middle East. And they won’t let anyone negotiate with Putin behind Kyiv’s back in order to get grain in exchange for unacceptable concessions to the enemy.
The only real plan of the world community is to force the Russian Federation to retreat and lift the blockade of the Black and Azov Seas. The civilized world will avoid global hunger, geopolitical upheavals and crazy costs by putting in its place a bunker gopnik with 1.5% of world GDP.
