Alternatives to the collapsed Black Sea Grain Initiative

 

 
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on the grain deal

“The US and other Western countries are making mistake after mistake. In general, their path in recent years is a path of mistakes and suffering… the inability to combine their ambitions, their arrogant expectation that everyone around them should obey them, and what they see in practice. Well, someone once used the expression ‘impotent rage’ to describe this situation, I don’t want to use this kind of cliche but the facts remain facts, we’re dealing with a deep foreign policy imbalance; this is something that could be described in terminology as a dangerous mixture of megalomania with an inferiority complex.

Our firm position on what led to the collapse of the agreement of last year and caused the impossibility of continuing that part of these agreements was stated by the Russian foreign ministry. We had warned the UN and their leadership as well as our foreign partners about this for many months; this goes to demonstrate their inability to fulfill their part of the agreement; this is another manifestation of the chronic incompetence of the collective West and its habit of always trying to play the same game; this will not happen, they need to understand this. As for mining the ports, they will invent any story so that gullible readers and viewers and listeners consume and perceive all this uncritically; this is done to continue forming the image of Russia as an enemy; we oppose this with a confident course…

I assure you, that our position in terms of helping those in need is radically different from the selfish and so contemptuously arrogant-to-their-own-needs position of the European Union itself… I don’t want to delve into the economic aspects of all this, but the political aspect boils down to the fact that we will help those in need and we will find ways to do it with grain and fertilizers and we will not be hindered in this regard."

Shared by David Occhiuto
NYC  

~ From the Russia-Africa summit 2023 in St. Petersburg.  See interview with Zambian Socialist Party president Fred M'membe here

~  The Russian government has written off over $20 billion of debt historically owed by African nations, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, speaking at a plenary session of the Russia-Africa forum in St. Petersburg.

“The total amount of debt of the African countries written off by Russia amounts to $23 billion dollars with another $90 million to be allocated for the same purposes,” Putin stated, with reference to historical trade and finance links between Moscow and Africa.

On Thursday, the president said Russia would provide hard-pressed countries on the continent with free grain. Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somali, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea will each receive between 25,000 and 50,000 tons of grain, while Moscow will cover the delivery costs of the shipments.