Saturday, October 29, 2022

Putin's "Hunger Games" Back On



Not long after conspiring with Saudi butchers to jack up the price of oil to help fellow autocrat Republicans in the mid- terms, Russian thug and brutal war criminal Vladimir Putin is suspending the Ukrainian grain export deal brokered by the U.N. 

Russia announced Saturday that it will move to suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices.

The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea, which Russia says took place early Saturday, as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.

The Russian declaration came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and which expires on Nov. 19 — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.

What an evil, desperate bunch of thugs.  If you believe Putin and his criminal associates on the reason for the suspension, we have an artifact from the lost island of Atlantis we'd like to sell you.

Just as Putin is determined to destroy as much of Ukraine's infrastructure as he can before his final humiliation on the battlefield, so is he trying to further cripple Ukraine's agricultural economy.  Ukraine is doubtlessly working with bordering EU states to transship as much grain as it can to avoid Putin's new blockade.  But damage will be done, and innocent people around the world will suffer hardship and famine as long as Putin plays his "hunger games."

The day when he's helped out of a window by a former trusted associate cannot come too soon.

BONUS: Time to get an international escort flotilla together.

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