Russians targeting Ukrainian food supply, including stores of grain: minister
Global News
Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has warned that Russian forces are targeting Ukrainians' food supply, including their stores of grain.
Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has warned that Russian forces are targeting Ukrainians’ food supply, including their stores of grain.
Bibeau, who attended an emergency meeting of G7 agriculture ministers on Friday, said Ukraine’s minister told them Russian forces are hitting grain silos, ports and the infrastructure needed to gather and distribute the harvest, as well as food storage facilities.
In an interview after the G7 meeting, Bibeau said Russia’s attempt to disrupt Ukraine’s food supply was “shocking” and a further sign that Russian targets are not just military as claimed by President Vladimir Putin.
“What I was particularly alarmed about was the fact that Russia is really targeting agricultural infrastructure, silos, grain elevators, the port itself being a major part of it,” she said.
Bibeau said this was having a “direct impact on their capacity to produce food for their own population _ to feed their population.”
She said Ukraine’s agriculture minister told the G7 meeting that the embattled nation’s farmers face severe challenges to harvest this year’s crops.
Not only are farmers and many farm workers fighting the Russians, but Ukraine’s military has also commandeered stores of fuel for farm machinery, such as combine harvesters.
“All the diesel that they had in storage for farms has been provided for military vehicles,” she said. “They are running out of diesel.”