The war in Ukraine – hunger as a cowardly weapon

warrior head Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is by no means a war. At first he tried a massive conventional attack. He failed. Then he tried to force Europe to capitulate by stopping gas exports. He failed. He then attempted to divinely unleash a flood on parts of the Kherson province by blowing up the Kakhovka Dam, washing away the rich topsoil, so that a desert-like ecological catastrophe would be a likely outcome. And this time, most likely, he will succeed in this crime, too.

And now Putin uses food, The oldest weapon in its war. Starving enemies into surrender has been a weapon since early times, by burning enemy fields, or laying siege to a city, as Hitler did to Leningrad, Putin’s hometown, during World War II, where a million people starved to death, among whom was the elder brother to Putin. So Putin should know more than anyone what food is as a weapon, and also because his mother was dragged by the eyelid on the way to the mass graves on the outskirts of the city, and he survived as if by a miracle. Looking back, we can say that 13 years later, a dark miracle occurred in the city; Vladimir Putin was born.

Now is the world Who will starve because of Putin’s sick ambitions in Ukraine and, among other things, the desperation of the United Nations World Food Programme. The United Nations says feeding the world’s poorest people will be much more expensive. Not only because the price of wheat is expected to rise by 20 percent over the summer, after Putin canceled the grain agreement with Ukraine in July. The agreement allowed Ukrainian grain to pass through the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. But now that the blockade was re-established, not only was the grain more expensive, but so was transportation.

So the work is being done Now intensively to find other ways to Ukrainian wheat and corn. Rail transport is more expensive, moreover, it is complicated by the fact that grain has to be transported because the Ukrainian railway network is Soviet, so the tracks are wider than in the rest of Europe. And farmers in neighboring countries are protesting against cheap Ukrainian wheat, which is superior to Ukrainian wheat. Another route is to transport through the Danube Delta on the Ukrainian side, and then down again on the Romanian side. But it is complex, expensive and dangerous. Not least after Russia bombed the grain depots in the city of Izmail in the Danube Delta. Moreover, this route is difficult due to the low water level because the countries upstream of the Danube have dams that hold back the water.

Food is perhaps the most dangerous weapon in war. In this sense, it is a weapon that suits belligerent President Putin well.