Putin blames West for grain shortages

Berlin After more than 100 days of war in the Ukraine, the global shortage of grain is increasingly coming to the fore. It is striking that the President of the African Union (AU), the Senegalese head of state Macky Sall, avoids taking a clear position against Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. On the contrary: After a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi last Friday, Sall accused the EU of impeding Russian grain and fertilizer exports with its sanctions.

Neither grain nor fertilizers from Russia are on the EU sanctions list. But that didn’t stop Sall from urging Western countries to facilitate the export of the goods in question from Russia. The AU President’s demand has a simple reason: more than 40 percent of the wheat consumed in African countries comes either from Ukraine, which is currently cut off from exports via the Black Sea port of Odessa, or from Russia.