Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow\u2019s military action in Ukraine was not responsible for the global food crisis, instead blaming the West for preventing the export of Russian grain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe food market is unbalanced in the most serious way,\u201d Putin said, addressing a \u201cBRICS Plus\u201d virtual summit that brought together the leaders of 17 countries, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Putin accused Western countries, in particular the United States, of \u201cdestabilising global agricultural production\u201d with restrictions on the delivery of fertiliser from Russia and Belarus, and by \u201cmaking it difficult\u201d for Moscow to export grain.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cRising prices on agricultural staples, such as grain, have hit the hardest developing countries, developing markets where bread and flour are a necessary means of survival for the majority of the population,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He also slammed the \u201chysteria\u201d surrounding grain that has been trapped in Ukrainian ports since the start of Russia\u2019s military actions, saying that it \u201cdoes not solve any problems on the global grain market\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Putin said Russia is a \u201cresponsible actor on the global food market\u201d and is ready to \u201chonestly fulfil all its contractual obligations\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Washington and Brussels have hit Moscow with unprecedented sanctions after Putin sent troops into pro-Western Ukraine on Feb 24.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: Nam News Network<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow\u2019s military action in Ukraine was not responsible for the global food crisis, instead blaming the West for preventing the export of Russian grain. \u201cThe food market is unbalanced in the most serious way,\u201d Pu…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45815,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45814\/revisions\/45815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricagazette.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}