Russian UN Ambassador Warns How Developing World Is Held Hostage to Western Sanctions Policy

May 20, 2022 (EIRNS)—Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, forcefully responded to Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s unhinged attack on Russia during the May 18 UN Security Council’s Ministerial on global food security. The reality, he said, is that the U.S. and the West are holding the developing world hostage with their insane sanctions policy which is causing mass hunger.

The Russian ambassador labeled as “absolutely deceitful” Blinken’s claim that Russia seeks to “starve everyone to death, while all you and Ukrainians care about is saving lives of those who are starving.” The reality, he argued, is that the U.S. and Western determination to “break the backbone” of the Russian economy through sanctions, with the resulting consequences for their own economies “which you will have to explain to your taxpayers and voters,” reveals only “this obsessive desire of yours to shoot yourselves in the leg, or rather both legs.” By carrying out a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, and trying to isolate it, he warned, “you are literally holding the whole developing world hostage, driving it towards famine. Whatever you may be saying, it is you and only you who can change this.”

Nebenzia ripped apart Blinken’s false assertions about Russia as the sole cause of the global food crisis, pointing to such factors as the COVID pandemic, interruptions in supply chains, growing freight and insurance charges and the “steep increase of anti-crisis financial injections into the economy.” Also important, he added, “is the leap over to green energy that is being imposed on the entire world instead of a thoroughly considered smooth energy transition, to say nothing of straight-up politicizing of energy cooperation by some states.”

Citing facts and figures to show that Ukraine is blocking ports, Nebenzia detailed what illegal sanctions—10,000 alone imposed on Russia—have done to Russian exports of agricultural products and fertilizers. This year, he reported, Russia expects to have a record wheat crop of 25 million tons available for export beginning on Aug. 1 through the end of the year through the Novorossiysk port. From June to December, the potential for fertilizer exports is 22 million tons.

“But if you don’t want to lift your sanctions of choice, why do you blame us for the food crisis? Why must the poorest countries and regions suffer from those irresponsible geopolitical games of yours?” Agricultural products and fertilizer from Russia and Belarus could play a very positive role in the current situation, he said, yet illegal sanctions will make it difficult for these to be delivered.