THE chairman of the African Union, Senegal’s President Macy Sall, told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday that the fighting in Ukraine and Western sanctions had worsened food shortages, and appealed to other countries to ensure grain and fertilizer exports aren’t blocked.
For his part, Putin blamed the West for emerging global food and energy crises and repeated his government’s offers of safe passage for ships exporting grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s leading exporters of wheat and corn.
“We will facilitate the peaceful passage and guarantee the safety of arrivals to these ports, as well as the entry of foreign ships and their movement through the Azov and Black seas, in any direction,” Putin pledged, in remarks carried on Russian state TV after his meeting with Sall in the Black Sea city of Sochi.
Ukraine and its allies have said that Russia is to blame for blocking Ukraine’s
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