And Now, Russia Is Also Accused of “Starving the World”

The United States, as rotating chairman of the UN Security Council, convoked a special conference on food security on May 18. Given the dire and worsening hunger crisis in the world, it should have been devoted to launching a crash program to increase food production and ensure emergency distribution to the most endangered areas, which could be done fairly quickly and efficiently, as experts at the World Food Program and FAO have stressed.

Instead of that, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken used the occasion to deliver a diatribe against Russia, holding it responsible for the entire world’s food insecurity, and charging it with stealing stocks of food in Ukraine and using the starvation of civilians as a tool of war, while piously denying that Western sanctions against Russia had anything to do with the problem. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, as co-host of the UN event, was hardly to be outdone in her remarks, accusing Moscow of waging war not only with “tanks, missiles and bombs”, but also with “hunger and deprivation” hitting the world’s poorest people.

While there is no doubt that grain and fertilizer production and exports have been severely hit by the war in Ukraine, that is not the main cause of the severe hunger crisis, as we have reported. In fact, back in April of 2020, WFP Director General David Beasley was already warning of famines “of biblical proportions” (cf. SAS 18, 20/20). In addition to the COVID pandemic and soaring energy prices, the European Union and the United States have been pushing insane “green deals”, which deliberately cut food production and penalize productive farming methods, with the absurd argument of stopping climate change, while driving family and independent farmers out of business to the benefit of the cartels, and promoting the large-scale use of grains to produce biofuel. Not to mention the soaring costs of energy caused by the contrived goal of reducing carbon emissions.

As for the situation in Ukraine itself, Tony Blinken and Annalena Baerbock both accused Russia of blocking the export of grains and other goods to the waiting world markets. However, even The Economist of London had to acknowledge, in its latest edition, that the Ukrainians themselves have also mined the waters in Black Sea ports, including Odessa, preventing ships from moving in or out. Unfortunately, that is war. Other options thus need to be found.

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, delivered a forceful counter attack at the UNSC. The reality, he argued, is that the U.S. and Western determination to “break the backbone” of the Russian economy through sanctions is what is driving the developing world towards famine, in addition to causing harm to their own economies. He also denounced the “leap over to green energy”, that is being imposed on the entire world “instead of a thoroughly considered smooth energy transition, to say nothing of straight-up politicizing of energy cooperation by some states.”