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International leaders attend summit in person
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Summit coincides with memorial to Stalin-era famine
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Initiative is in addition to U.N. export plan
KYIV, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy hosted a summit in Kyiv with allied nations on
Saturday to launch a plan to export $150 million worth of grain
to countries most vulnerable to famine and drought.
The “Grain from Ukraine” initiative demonstrated global food
security was “not just empty words” for Kyiv, he said.
The Kremlin says food exported from Ukraine’s Black Sea
ports under a U.N.-brokered plan has not been reaching the most
vulnerable countries.
Zelenskiy said Kyiv had raised $150 million from more than
20 countries and the European Union to export grain to countries
including Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
“We plan to send at least 60 vessels from Ukrainian ports to
countries that most face the threat of famine and drought,”
Zelenskiy told the gathering.
The summit was attended in-person by the prime ministers of
Belgium, Poland and Lithuania and the president of Hungary.
Germany and France’s presidents and the head of the European
Commission delivered speeches by video.
A joint statement issued after the summit said that since
Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, the world had received 10
million tons fewer agricultural products than in the same period
in 2021.
“This means that the food security of millions of people
around the world is seriously threatened,” it said, blaming a
Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports earlier in the conflict.
“We are convinced that we will jointly overcome the
grave humanitarian and economic consequences of the global food
crisis caused by Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine,” it
said.
The gathering coincided with Ukraine’s annual memorial
day for Holodomor, the man-made Stalin-era famine that killed
millions of Ukrainians in the winter of 1932-33.
In a video address, French President Emmanuel Macron
announced a contribution of 6 million euros ($6.24 million) for
the transport and distribution by the World Food Programme of
Ukrainian grain to Yemen and Sudan.
“The most vulnerable countries must not pay the price of a
war they did not want,” he said.
($1 = 0.9620 euros)
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; additional reporting by Dominique
Vidalon and David Ljunggren; writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing
by Louise Heavens, Barbara Lewis and Leslie Adler)
