Published 19th May, 2022

By Joseph Adeiye

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor of the United States, has accused Russia of preventing millions of tonnes of food from reaching the world market.

Sullivan said this at a White House press briefing on Wednesday.

Answering a question on the Russian blockade on grains, Sullivan revealed that Russia was preventing food from getting to Africa, the Americas, and the rest of the world.

“It is Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and nothing else that is stopping tens of millions of tons of food from getting out of the breadbasket of Europe — Ukraine — and onto the world market to feed people in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and everywhere else,” Sullivan said.

Russia has maintained its aggression against Odessa, which is the port from which food departs on large cargo ships. These food suppliers cannot go through the Black Sea route to access the world market. Russian ships have also engaged in an effective blockade of commercial ship traffic. This means that commercial ships cannot leave or arrive Odessa Port.

“We have publicly called upon Russia to end its attacks on Odessa and to end the blockade and to permit the traffic — the commercial and humanitarian traffic of ships into and out of Odessa Port,” said Sullivan.

“We are working closely with both Ukraine and the United Nations on this issue, as well as other allies and partners. And we are supporting efforts to facilitate the delivery of that grain to the world market so that it can alleviate food prices everywhere.”

In April, FIJ reported the growing influence of the war in Ukraine on global food supply, noting that Nigeria, with an inflation rate of 39.54 percent, was not left out. On May 11, Oxford Economics stated that food inflation could hit African countries harder than other countries.

Sullivan said that Russia must give permission to ease the food embargo. “We would like to see an outcome in which the facts — not just the rhetoric — the facts bear out the actual permission by Russia of large numbers of ships moving through the Black Sea and onto the world market”.

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