The EU and the U.S. accuse Russia of creating a global food crisis with its Ukraine invasion.
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder even finds ominous historical parallels between the current goings-on and the famine in Ukraine — and parts of Russia — caused by the Bolshevik collectivization in the early 1930s. "Putin has a hunger plan,” Snyder recently tweeted.
The invasion has certainly delivered a series of shocks to global commodity markets that have threatened the food security of the most vulnerable countries, especially African ones. These shocks, however, appear to have more to do with energy prices and freight insurance rates than with the disruption of Ukrainian agricultural exports — which Ukraine does its best to maintain despite near-impossible conditions.