The head of the African Union said his continent had become a victim of the war in Ukraine as he met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday for talks on the global food crisis.
Macky Sall, also Senegal's President, said bottlenecks of grain and fertiliser caused by the war between two major agricultural producers were creating “really serious threats” to African food security.
Speaking as Ukraine marked 100 days since Russia invaded, Mr Sall told the Russian president to understand that “our countries, even if they are far from the theatre of war, are victims on an economic level”.
But he sided with Mr Putin in suggesting western sanctions were partly to blame for the food problems, a narrative described as misinformation by European leaders.
The UN said on Friday it was in “very, very complex” negotiations with Russia to unblock exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea harbours. The blockages have been blamed for soaring food prices and led to rationing of humanitarian goods.
Amin Awad, the UN’s crisis co-ordinator for Ukraine, said efforts to export grain by land were under way but would not be sufficient to shift the bulk of the stranded food.
“It does have to really be a maritime movement to support 50 to 60 million tonnes of food out,” Mr Awad said.
The European Union and French President Emmanuel Macron have called for the UN to broker an agreement with Moscow to resume food exports.
EU leaders, who say Russia is orchestrating the hunger crisis in an attempt to gain leverage, insist they have not imposed any sanctions on food or fertiliser and that Moscow’s claims to the contrary are false.
“The fact that there is a severe food crisis developing is only the fault of Russia’s unjustified war,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week.
However, EU leaders were told by Mr Sall at a summit on Tuesday that Russia’s narrative had gained currency on the continent and that sanctions against payment system Swift were affecting food deliveries to Africa.
At Mr Putin’s residence in Sochi, Russia, Mr Sall said it was important to work together so that “everything that concerns food, grain, fertiliser is actually outside" of western sanctions.
Although voicing concerns about the consequences of the war, he did not criticise the Russian invasion and pointed out that much of Africa had taken a neutral position on the conflict.
A number of African countries including Senegal, South Africa and Sudan abstained on a UN resolution in March that condemned Russia’s invasion.
Mr Putin made no promises to provide grain in his public remarks but spoke of seeking deeper humanitarian ties with Africa.
His spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who repeated Russia’s denial that it is blocking exports from Ukraine, said Mr Putin would seek to explain to his guest “who mined the ports, what it is necessary to do to allow the grain flow to resume”.
