Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Russia to be excluded from the G20 of the world’s leading economies due to Moscow’s new ban on grain exports.
Zelenskiy reacted on Saturday evening to Russia’s decision to suspend an agreement to export grain through Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea.
“Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Bangladesh, Vietnam, these and other countries may suffer from the aggravation of the food crisis deliberately provoked by Russia,” Zelensky said in his evening video message.
“Why can a handful of people somewhere in the Kremlin decide whether food will be on the tables of people in Egypt or Bangladesh?” – he asked.
He said that a strong response was needed from the United Nations, as well as from the Group of Twenty Major Industrial and Developing Countries. “Russia is not part of the G20,” he added.
Since last September, Russia has been postponing inspections, conducted jointly with the UN, Turkey and Ukraine, of ships passing through the Bosphorus, where 176 ships with about two million tons of grain are stuck in traffic jams.
Russia justified its withdrawal from the agreement by drone attacks on ships of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on Saturday morning and blamed Ukraine for them. Moscow was talking about a terrorist attack.
The next G-20 summit is scheduled to be held in mid-November in Bali, Indonesia. According to the Kremlin, it has not yet been decided whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will take part in the summit.