West to blame for soaring food prices – Moscow
Western countries don’t want to lift restrictions on Russian grain supplies, and are therefore preventing global food prices from falling, a senior Foreign Ministry official in Moscow has said.
Alexander Kinshchak, head of the Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa Department, told RIA news agency in an interview published on Friday that Russia had been forced to adjust export mechanisms as a result of sanctions in recent months.
“US and EU sanctions, which include disconnecting Russian banks from SWIFT and blocking money transfers in dollars and euros, penalizing companies that insure our cargoes, prohibiting Western vessels from entering Russian ports and closing access of domestic merchant fleet to European countries have complicated logistics, including a sharp increase in freight costs,” he explained.
“We had to promptly work out alternative transport and logistics schemes and agree on new channels and forms of financial settlements using other currencies, including the ruble,” Kinshchak said, adding that transportation and insurance prices in the Black Sea have faced additional problems due to “chaotic mining” of its waters by the Ukrainian military.
However, according to the official, “Russia has fulfilled and will continue to fulfill in good faith its obligations to supply food to Africa and the Middle East” despite the West’s “illegitimate” restrictions.
“But to fully normalize the situation, all transport and insurance restrictions on our exports must be lifted, and unhindered payment must be ensured. So far, the Americans and Europeans do not want to do this, preventing the saturation of the global food market and the lowering of prices. At the same time, they continue to promote the fake notion among the global public that Russia has provoked a global famine,” he stated.
Kinshchak noted that exports of Russian grain to the Middle East have largely remained unaffected by sanctions and have recently returned to growth, “thanks to timely measures taken jointly with our partners in the region.”
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