The Russian ambassador walked out of a UN Safety Council assembly after being blamed for a looming a world meals disaster.
The EU accused Moscow of of utilizing meals provides as ‘a stealth missile in opposition to growing international locations’ amid the conflict in Ukraine.
European Council President Charles Michel was straight addressing Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia – who then swiftly departed in dramatic vogue.
Mr Michel stated he had seen tens of millions of tons of grain and wheat caught in containers and ships in Odessa a number of weeks in the past.
That was ‘due to Russian warships within the Black Sea,’ he argued – earlier than additionally blaming Russian assaults on transport infrastructure and grain storage amenities, in addition to its tanks, bombs and mines stopping Ukraine from planting and harvesting.
‘That is driving up meals costs, pushing individuals into poverty, and destabilising total areas,’ Mr Michel stated.
‘Russia is solely accountable for this looming meals disaster. Russia alone.’
He additionally accused Russian forces of stealing grain from areas it has occupied ‘whereas shifting the blame (on) others’ – branding it ‘cowardly’ and ‘propaganda, pure and easy’.
Mr Nebenzia walked out in the course of the briefing and gave Russia’s seat to a different diplomat.
Later, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky posted on Telegram’s Russian channel that Mr Michel’s feedback had been ‘so impolite’ that his boss had left the Safety Council chamber because of this.
The assembly was anticipated to deal with sexual violence in the course of the conflict however the wider penalties of the Russian invasion had been additionally raised.
Mr Michel backed a plan by UN Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres to get Russian settlement to permit grain exports to go away Ukraine – and guarantee Russian meals and fertiliser have unrestricted entry to world markets.
The 2 international locations produce virtually a 3rd of the world’s wheat and barley and half of its sunflower oil, whereas Russia and its ally Belarus are the world’s quantity two and three producers of a key ingredient in fertiliser, known as potash.
Mr Guterres warned final month that world starvation ranges ‘are at a brand new excessive’, with the variety of individuals going through extreme meals insecurity doubling in simply two years from 135 million earlier than the Covid disaster to 276 million in the present day.
He stated greater than 500,000 individuals are residing in famine circumstances – a rise of greater than 500% since 2016.
Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya instructed the Safety Council on Monday his nation stays dedicated to discovering options to forestall the worldwide meals disaster and is able to create ‘the mandatory circumstances’ to renew exports from the important thing southern port of Odesa.
‘The query is the best way to ensure that Russia doesn't abuse the commerce path to assault town itself,’ he stated.
Referencing Russian missiles hitting a plant in Kyiv on Sunday, the place freight vehicles that carry grain to Ukrainian ports had been being repaired, he added: ‘It means all Putin’s fairy tales about his readiness to facilitate Ukrainian wheat export that he so eloquently tells his uncommon interlocutors stay too far faraway from actuality’.
Russia insists that the conflict in Ukraine is justified and that it's open to permitting Ukraine to export wheat.
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