Putin’s new war crime: Starving world poor by blocking grain exports

Obviously, it is a nonstarter to reward the thief for marketing stolen goods.

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Columnists

June 9, 2022 - 3:08 PM

Onlookers stand in front of the shopping and entertainment center in the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa on May 10, 2022, destroyed after Russian missiles strike late on May 9, 2022. (Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

You may think you’ve seen every horror in Russia’s kit of war crimes against Ukraine (short of weapons of mass destruction).

You haven’t.

Moscow is blockading (or destroying) Ukraine’s port cities on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and preventing them from exporting grain. This has created a global food crisis.

With a level of cynicism that makes Machiavelli look angelic, Vladimir Putin is trying to turn a made-in-Moscow food disaster into a weapon. He is blackmailing the West to drop sanctions — or concede Russian domination over all Ukrainian ports, including Odesa — in return for Russia’s ending its blockade.

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