GRANSEE, GERMANY - AUGUST 18: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks at Schloss Meseberg palace on August 18, 2018 in Gransee, Germany. (Photo by Xander Heinl/Photothek via Getty Images)
Russia sets up company to sell Ukraine’s grain
Russian-installed officials in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region have set up a company to buy up local grain and resell it on Moscow’s behalf, a local representative told the Interfax news agency on Saturday.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of Zaporizhzhia’s pro-Russian provisional administration, said the new state-owned grain company has taken control of several facilities.
He said “the grain will be Russian” and “we don’t care who the buyer will be.”
It was not clear if the farmers whose grain was being sold by Russia were getting paid. Balitsky said his administration would not forcibly appropriate grain or pressure producers to sell it.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of stealing Ukraine’s grain and causing a global food crisis that could cause millions of deaths from hunger.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential office accused Russia’s military of shelling and burning grain fields ahead of the harvest. Andriy Yermak alleged Moscow is “trying to repeat” a Soviet-era famine which claimed the lives of over 3 million Ukrainians in 1932-33.
“Our soldiers are putting out the fires, but (Russia’s) ‘food terrorism’ must be stopped,” Yermak wrote Saturday on Telegram.
His and Balitsky’s claims could not be independently verified.
