Posted on 05/27/2022 8:10:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s not just the United States that’s facing issues of empty shelves in food stores. A number of countries are dealing with both supply chain problems and shortages of staple food goods. While there are a lot of moving parts contributing to these issues, the Russians have determined that the root cause is the global sanctions on their country. The almost comical explanation from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday left most of the media rolling its collective eyes because the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports is preventing millions of tons of grain from making it to the global market. Wheat, in particular, is rotting in storage silos, along with corn and other crops. Ukraine is also one of the largest exporters of sunflower oil. But at the moment, virtually none of their produce is able to get out of the country. (Associated Press)
Russia pressed Thursday for the West to lift sanctions imposed because of its war in Ukraine, claiming without proof that the punitive measures are preventing millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products from leaving Ukrainian ports, exacerbating a global food crisis.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but the war, including a Russian blockade of its ports, has prevented most of those products from leaving the country, endangering the world food supply.
But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov sought to shift the blame to Western sanctions on Thursday. “We accuse Western countries of taking a series of unlawful actions that has led to the blockade.”
While this really should go without saying, food, fertilizer and seeds are exempt from all of the sanctions being imposed on Russia. And it’s not Russia’s products that the global market is missing out on. It’s Ukraine’s products that aren’t making it out of the country. There are no sanctions on Ukraine. There is, however, a massive military blockade preventing ships from coming and going through the nation’s ports. And road travel for large quantities of goods is “problematic” because of all the shelling and the destroyed roads and bridges.
According to the World Trade Organization, there are currently 25 million tons of grain sitting in storage near Ukraine’s ports and another 25 million tons are expected to be harvested in the next month. (Assuming the Russians haven’t blown up all of the farm equipment by then.) This week the Russian Defense Ministry offered to “open a path” for foreign ships to leave both Black Sea ports and Mariupol. But every time they’ve claimed to open paths before, they immediately started shelling anyone who attempted to use them. The Russians have lost any credibility they may have once had in such matters.
Meanwhile, China and Russia vetoed new sanctions on North Korea at the UN this week.
China and Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States on Thursday that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea for its spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-2 and marked a first serious division among the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N.’s most powerful body on a North Korea sanctions resolution.
In the past, both China and Russia went along with the rest of the UN in imposing sanctions on Kim Jong-un’s madness. Or at least they were willing to do so on paper while undermining the sanctions in the background. But now they are both openly defying the rest of the world and seem willing to welcome North Korea into the nuclear club as part of the new Axis of Evil. The world is clearly fractured in a way that we haven’t seen since the 1940s and I’ve grown increasingly concerned that we may be on the brink of something that most of us hoped we would never live to see.
As long as I can get my Polish Sobieski, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing I need from Mother Russia or her Ugly Stepsister, Ukraine. ;)
China, Russia and the Norks as the new Axis of Evil.
Terrific! Great job, Brandon! *SPIT*
Of course Russia does not mention that the sanctions are a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia goes home and the sanctions are lifted.
Rapists always blame their victims.
https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/10803
Pepe Escobar nails it!
Why should it? It is not Russia bitching about food crisis.
Because they have no business invading another country.
RE: Pepe Escobar nails it!
I am not interested in who wins militarily in this conflict.
I am interested in the MORALITY of an act of invasion. In other words, who is right or wrong.
Escobar only tells us that he believes Russia will win the war. So? That makes their invasion the right thing to do?
It certainly appears to me that the sanctions placed on Russia has hurt the American people as much, or more than the Russian people. What say ye????
RE: It certainly appears to me that the sanctions placed on Russia has hurt the American people as much, or more than the Russian people.
I can only speak for myself. I am hurt at the gas pump and at the groceries but that does not keep me from getting the supplies I need.
BTW, the hurt at the gas pump started months before Russia invaded Ukraine. The war only exacerbated it.
Okay, it is going to make everyone fed:)
Is it your position that everyone should bow to Russian aggression because they are blackmailing the world with starvation that would result from resisting them?
Logic is not your strong point. Who blackmails whom? They are simply stating facts. Russia didn’t ban the traffic of food and it is not complaining about it nor starving.
The blocking of food shipments is a direct result of the Russian invasion. Additionally, Russia will not allow the food shipments unless the sanctions imposed upon them as a result of their invasion are lifted. This is all on Russia. Russia is saying to the world: “You all will starve unless we get our way.” That is blackmail.
BTW, you did not answer my question if the world should bow down to Russia aggression because otherwise there will be mass starvation because of that aggression.
Easy comparison on this one. The first of the supply line problems in the USA started in 2020 with the closing of Chinese factories during the pandemic. The Russian/Ukraine war started in February of this year, 2022. I don’t see the possibility of the supply line problem having anything to do with the war.
wy69
That is only a bit of the problem. If you look at fertilizer production the same countries—Russia, China, the United States (except NPK), Indonesia, Brazil are always in the top 10 producers.
Now that we have taken so much production of petrochemicals offline in our country (for the sake of the planet you see) costs have gone up dramatically for production of fertilizer.
Since it is a world market, prices have gone up for all the major producers. Not just for chemical feedstock but for petroleum products used in mining and transport of fertilizer.
Here are the numbers by country:
https://www.nationmaster.com/nmx/sector/fertilizer
Isn't the use of deadly force generally considered justified when you're attempting to protect a third party from being killed? What was going to make the Kiev government stop shelling people in the Donbas, short of Russia taking direct action to put a stop to it?
Non-sequitur. Imagine a situation where I banged your wife and you declare a hunger strike in protest, threatening to die if I won’t stop. If I indeed don’t stop, and you die from hunger, who is the idiot to blame? Is it my blackmail or you are an idiot? Blackmail requires a demand which is obviously missing in both cases.
Stop with the charges of genocide. Ukraine was not indiscriminately shelling civilian populations. They were shelling military positions held by Russian backed insurgents in an attempt to restore their rule over their sovereign territory. In any case, it was just a fraction of the shelling now being conducted by the Russians.
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