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Russia “deliberately using starvation as a weapon,” Germany’s agriculture minister says
By blocking Ukrainian ports, Russia is “intentionally utilizing hunger as a weapon,” German Agricultural Minister Cem Özdemir mentioned on Friday.
It’s “a very disgusting sort of warfare that Russia is engaged in,“ Özdemir informed CNN’s affiliate N-TV throughout a go to to Kyiv on Friday. “Different routes value an insane amount of cash,” he added.
Özdemir mentioned other ways to export grain from Ukraine together with his Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Solskyi.
“It might be kamikaze for Ukraine to depend on Putin’s phrase with out credible, efficient army ensures that the safety of Ukrainian ports and ships is assured,” Özdemir mentioned.
“I’d not belief Putin’s phrase in any means; he has confirmed to be a infamous liar,” Özdemir informed N-TV.
Some background: In regular instances, Ukraine would export round three-quarters of the grain it produces. In response to information from the European Fee, about 90% of those exports had been shipped by sea, from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Russia is at the moment blocking maritime entry to the Black Sea ports held by Ukraine, which means that even the grain that’s nonetheless beneath Ukrainian management can’t be exported to the various international locations that depend on it.
Russia’s struggle in Ukraine may push as much as 49 million folks into famine or famine-like circumstances due to its devastating influence on world meals provide and costs, based on the United Nations.
Individually, German Well being Minister Karl Lauterbach participated in a donor convention for the development of a rehabilitation middle for the war-disabled on Friday in Lviv. Germany will assist container workshops for the manufacture of prosthetic limbs.
Lauterbach mentioned about 200 German docs had been able to assist in surgical procedure and trauma remedy in Ukraine.
“It’s upsetting to see how a lot this nation is affected by a struggle of aggression that borders on barbarism,” Lauterbach mentioned.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has not visited Ukraine. After German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was refused a go to to Kyiv by Ukrainian authorities over Germany’s hesitance to ship army assist to Ukraine, Scholz had rejected to journey to Ukraine to this point. Overseas Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Bucha and Kyiv on Could 10.
CNN’s Ivana Kottasová contributed reporting to this publish.