Global food crisis a result of policy mistakes by US and EU, Putin aide tells RT
Food prices were rising long before Russia’s military operation began in Ukraine, a senior Russian official says.
The looming global food crisis that could result from skyrocketing food prices was enabled by a series of policy mistakes by Washington and Brussels, Maksim Oreshkin, economic adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told RT. The conflict in Ukraine alone could not have caused the crisis on such a massive scale, Oreshkin said.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's international food price index shows that between April 2020 and April 2022, global food prices rose by more than 60%. The increase occurred for the most part before February 2022, when Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine. In the four years from 2016 to 2020, the index grew by less than 7 points, but it increased by a whopping 27 points, from 98.1 to 125.7, in 2020-21. After the second year of the pandemic, the index stood at 141.1. Since Russia’s military operation began, the index has risen by a further 17 points.
💬 “Swings like that, with such huge increases in prices, are not happening due to one reason. It’s always a combination of a number of reasons which is leading to such a result,” Oreshkin, Russia’s economic development minister from 2016 to 2020, said.
Putin: Europe's 'Stupid, Short-Sighted' Policies Provoked Energy, Food Crises: European politicians' short-sightedness, not Russia, provoked the energy crisis, and Russia is ready to take necessary measures to alleviate a global food crisis, President Vladimir Putin has said. "We see attempts to shift the blame for what is happening on the food market on Russia, but this is an attempt to pin the blame on someone else," Putin said in an interview with Rossiya-1 on Friday. He recalled that contrary to Western politicians' claims, problems on the global food market began during the COVID-19 pandemic, long before Russia kicked off its special military operation in Ukraine.