The Misrepresented Grain Deal
Recall that Russia suspended the grain deal following the Ukrainian attack on the Black Sea Fleet. The arrangement was meant to control the export of grain from both Russia and Ukraine. The Russians were angry that their ships, which were supposed to ensure the safety of the grain shipping corridor, were also attacked and that the safe corridor for the ships was misused for the attack.
Russia put a stop to implementation since it could not ensure this security in such a situation. Russia made good on the agreement only after receiving formal assurances in writing from Ukraine that it would stop using the corridor for strikes of this nature. Very little or inaccurate coverage of this was found in Western media.
Because the world’s poorest countries so desperately required Ukrainian grain, the Western media spent weeks in the summer of 2022 spreading false information about Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea and its use as a weapon to cause world starvation. The EU was purportedly pressuring the nefarious Russians to let the delivery of Ukrainian food to the most impoverished nations, as it was intended for the Third World.
Patronized Consumers of Western Media
As a result, in the summer of 2022, the grain deal was renewed, enabling the transportation of Ukrainian grain across the Black Sea. The Western media immediately ceased covering this subject when it became apparent that the majority of the grain coming from Ukraine was going to the EU rather than the world’s poorest countries. This was covered in detail on the pertinent UN website, but it was not meant for Westerners to find out about.
After Russia withdrew from the deal in the summer of 2023, the Western media once more exploited this development for misinformation. However, aside from this, the media has remained largely silent on the subject of food deliveries to the world’s needy nations. This is presumably because there hasn’t been any change in the amount of hunger, but the West is still not doing anything about it.
Those Who Help the Peoples in Need and Those who Only Help Themselves
Because the EU’s warehouses are already full and European farmers are resisting cheap imports from Ukraine, which are depressing prices in the EU and threatening their livelihoods, the EU is fighting over the sale of Ukrainian grain. But no one in Brussels is thinking of buying up some of the cheap Ukrainian grain to supply the starving countries.
Russia is unique in that its president, Vladimir Putin, declared in March 2023 that he would donate hundreds of thousands of tons of grain to starving countries if sanctions against Russian banks prevented countries from buying grain from Russia. This was his response to the West’s sanctions against Russia’s grain exports. In addition, Putin has kept his promise and supplied six of the poorest countries in Africa – Mali, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Somalia and the Central African Republic – with 200,000 tons of grain free of charge. The last donation to date, which was intended for Somalia, reached its destination at the end of January.
The European Union (EU) is astonished that African states are gradually turning away from the West and towards Russia, while the EU spends tens of billions on arms transfers to Kiev and castigates those who do not want to adhere to the West’s anti-Russian strategy. The evil “Russian propaganda” is to blame, and Brussels is at a loss as to why the global South feels so strongly about Russia.
The Most Recent Famine in Africa and How the West and Russia are Responding.
Here’s another illustration of this. Zimbabwe has declared a state of calamity as a result of crop failures, according to a report published on April 3 in Der Spiegel, a prominent German magazine that serves as a spokesperson for transatlantic foreign policy. “The nation requires financial assistance totaling two billion US dollars to prevent starvation in the 17 million-person nation,” Der Spiegel reports. But the West is doing nothing to assist.
Der Spiegel failed to mention that in addition to providing Zimbabwe with a humanitarian shipment of 23,000 tons of fertilizers in March, including potash and complex fertilizers. Russia has also contributed 25,000 tons of grain to the country.
When presenting the fertilizers, the Russian envoy explained that they were only a small portion of a bigger scheme, as Russia plans to provide about 300,000 tons of mineral fertilizers to areas where the population is experiencing food scarcity.
In place of the neo-colonial exploitation that the West engages in there, Russia offers the nations of the Global South or the Global Majority equitable and fair collaboration. A fact that Western media consumers are not allowed to know. And if a medium dares to inform them about it, the “Russia propaganda” hammer of the rest of the media strikes to discredit it.
The reason for the popularity of the coup governments in Mali and Niger is their resistance to the exploitation of their countries by the West, which they have finally had enough of. In Senegal, a country historically strongly influenced by France, a candidate who shares these views just emerged victorious in the presidential race.
In the West, disinformed and gullible people still believe in the Western fairy tale of “Russia propaganda”, but Africans have long since seen through it.
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