Russia Declares War on Global Food Security
Russian forces launched missiles and drones at Ukraine’s Black Sea coast on July 18 and 19, destroying at least 60,000 tons of grain and damaging critical storage infrastructure. The attack came just days after Russia withdrew from an international deal that allowed Ukraine to safely ship its grain out of the Black Sea. It has kindled fears that Russia is waging war on global food security.
Russia said it would only renew the deal if Ukraine and Western nations would let its ammonia exports be routed through a pipeline to the Ukrainian port of Odesa and if its national agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank was reconnected to the swift international payments system.
Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the deal.
—Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman
Russian authorities also announced that any vessel visiting Ukrainian Black Sea ports would be viewed as carriers of military equipment and targeted accordingly, starting at midnight local time on July 20. The announcement added that “the flag states of these ships will be considered parties to the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.”
Food insecurity: The United Nations reported on July 17 that some 783 million people suffered chronic hunger in 2022, about 9.2 percent of the global population. Due to Ukraine’s abundant production of wheat, corn, barley and other food products, the nation is nicknamed the “breadbasket of Europe.”
With Russia withdrawing from the export deal and targeting Ukraine’s grain and infrastructure, rates of chronic hunger could dramatically increase. Already on Wednesday, wheat futures prices were up by as much as 9 percent, according to Bloomberg. This is the sharpest jump in more than 10 years.
The Trumpet said: In The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, we explain that the Bible’s most dire warnings about famine are for the present age:
We are not discussing some dusty old prophecies. These are dramatic, dire prophecies that lie directly in front of us! …
This great famine will eventually spread to every corner of the Earth before mankind repents in unconditional surrender to God ….
