Britain Backs ‘Coalition of the Willing’ to Transport Ukrainian Grain

May 24, 2022 (EIRNS)—On May 23, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, in London for talks with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, called for a coalition “of the willing” to facilitate Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea (claiming Russia is blockading such shipments). Naval vessels would escort the cargo ships.

London’s Guardian reports that, following the meeting, Truss said the U.K. would want to participate with the Royal Navy. She said that the proposal would require demining the harbors (Ukraine mined the Odessa harbor) and providing Ukraine with long-range weapons for the ostensibly defensive reasons of protecting its harbors.

While called a “non-military humanitarian mission,” their plan would be conducted with “military ships and planes.”

Will the British—remember Truss’s “geopolitics is back”?— actually support efforts to prevent mass starvation? Will it act to end sanctions, demand Kyiv negotiate to conclude the war, call for a halt to efforts to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use, or spend a portion of its Ukraine expenses on fighting global hunger? Why do any of that, when it’s possible to launch a supposedly anti-hunger plan that just so happens to involve “long-range weapons”?