Russia: Sanctions Must Be Lifted to Avoid Food Crisis

International sanctions imposed on Moscow should be lifted to avoid a global food crisis, a Russian deputy foreign minister revealed on Wednesday.

"Solving the food problem requires a comprehensive approach, including the removal of sanctions that have been imposed on Russian exports and financial transactions," Andrei Rudenko said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

"It also requires Ukraine to de-mine all ports where ships are docked and Russia is ready to provide the necessary humanitarian passage," Rudenko stressed.

The West has accused the Kremlin of using hunger as a weapon amid its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine alone produce 30% of the global wheat supply.

Hence, the United Nations (UN) has urged Russian authorities to release grain stuck in Ukrainian ports due to Moscow's military campaign.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously affirmed that the Western sanctions imposed on Russia hurt the economies of those countries that introduce them, provoking a global crisis.

“Precisely these sanctions largely provoke the global crisis. Their authors, guided by near-sighted inflated political ambitions, by Russophobia, to a greater extent hurt their own national interests, their own economies, the well-being of their citizens,” Putin asserted.

“It is obvious that due to objective economic laws, the continued sanctions frenzy, if I may say so, will inevitably lead to the most complex consequences for the European Union which will be difficult to reverse, for its citizens, as well as for the poorest countries that have already encountered the risks of hunger,” he noted.