Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to limit Ukraine's grain exports, falsely claiming that the West is deceiving developing countries by withtaking much of its food stocks designed to avert a global hunger crisis.

In a session at the Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok in the Far East, Putin said that under an agreement brokered by the United Nations (UN) and Turkey, only two of the 87 ships carrying 60,000 tons of food were earmarked for the World Food Programme.

"What we are seeing is another blatant deception," Putin said.

"It is a deception of the international community, a deception of partners in Africa and other countries that urgently need food. It's just a fraud, a rude and arrogant attitude towards the partners for whom all this was supposedly done," he said.

Grain export

Putin said he would contact Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the possibility of limiting the export of grain and food from Ukraine.

The Russian leader accused European countries of acting again as colonizers.

He argued that with the West's approach to the grain agreement, "the scale of food problems in the world will only increase, which could lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe."

"I hope the situation will eventually change," he said.

The Kremlin leader's threat exposes the risk that Russia could undermine the grain agreement through procedural objections.

To continue functioning, the agreement requires the cooperation of Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN, the four parties that signed the agreement in July. Neither Russia nor Turkey have any direct control over where Ukraine exports its food products on the international market.

Source: Canal Rural