DISINFO: EU sanctions undermine global food security
SUMMARY
The new [9th] sanctions package includes the possibility for EU member states to provide certain exemptions from sanctions in favor of a number of Russian food and fertilizer exporters. This step is an acknowledgment by the EU that its restrictive measures have undermined global food security, as they are directed against Russia's agro-industrial complex; they create significant barriers to the continued export of our agricultural products to third countries.
RESPONSE
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about sanctions in the context of Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The claim was neither counterbalanced nor critically challenged in the article.
The claim that sanctions are the cause of the global food crisis is an attempt to deflect Russia's responsibility for it. In fact, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has destabilised global food markets and is driving food prices up due to increased cost of production, transport and freight insurance. Russia has also destroyed substantial Ukrainian food stocks, production, as well as processing and transport capacities in areas occupied in Ukraine. Further, Russian threats to shipping transport in the Black Sea reduced the export capacity from free Ukraine.
Even before the 9th sanctions package, EU sanctions did not include the import of agricultural products unless a sanctioned individual was involved. Moreover, the sanctions already only covered bilateral trade between the EU and Russia, meaning that third countries can import Russian agri-food products without restriction, and therefore there is no basis for the claim that EU sanctions are the cause of the crisis in developing countries.
See article 15. of the conclusions of the European Council of 20 and 21 October 2022:
Russia, by weaponising food in its war against Ukraine, is solely responsible for the global food security crisis it has provoked. Russia’s war of aggression has triggered disruptions of agricultural production, supply chains and trade that have driven world food and fertiliser prices to unprecedented levels. The EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes have made possible the export of significant volumes of Ukrainian crops, agricultural products and fertilisers to the countries most in need.
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