The war of wheat, where the blackmail of Russia can arrive

Full-blown thefts, cross vetoes, more or less explicit blackmail. A war has opened up around wheat parallel to the one that has been fought in Ukraine for more than a hundred days. Russia is playing its dirty game. Controlling Ukrainian wheat, taking it out of its usual export channels and diverting it elsewhere allows for significant pressure to be exerted on a large part of the world. At stake is the survival of entire populations, especially in Africa, as well as the stability of the global economy and the management of migratory flows, and Moscow’s negotiating skills are growing in proportion to the worsening of the food crisis. Other actors, starting with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, want to turn the stalemate to their advantage. In the role of mediator, the Turkish president wants to unlock the negotiations to open a gateway to Ukrainian exports and present himself to the international community as the leader who has contributed to avoiding a global food crisis. Not only that, Erdogan’s aims are intertwined with the intention of a new operation in Syria against the Kurds, for which the green light from Moscow is needed, and also with the ongoing debate on the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO, which Obviously adverse Moscow. The visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Serghej Lavrov, to Ankara and the meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, is an opportunity to put the cards on the table and assert their reasons. The hypothesis pushed by Istanbul provides for a corridor protected by Turkish ships that guarantees the passage of merchant ships from Odessa to the Black Sea and to international waters. Already reducing the question to this minimal pattern, the unknowns are evident. On the one hand, there are all the difficulties of reaching an agreement that provides for the green light of two parties who are fighting hard on the pitch and who have no intention of granting blank openings. On the other hand, there is the delicacy of a negotiation that substantially affects the balance of a strategic area due to various relevant geopolitical implications. There are fears of Kiev, which cannot submit to solutions that further reduce its sovereignty. There are fears of NATO and the Western community, who see the risk of giving further strength to Moscow, and also to Istanbul. The recurring question is: how far can blackmail from Russia go? Meanwhile, time passes. And what mortars and tanks are doing in Donbass, bringing destruction and death, a prolonged shortage of grain outside of Ukraine is doing. International condemnation is needed but certainly not enough. The words of Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio, in a press conference with the director general of FAO, Qu Dongyu, at the Farnesina, describe the situation well. “We expect clear and concrete signals from Russia, because blocking grain exports means holding millions of children, women and men hostage and sentencing to death away from the conflict front. Russia, using food as a weapon of war, is guilty of other crimes, which add to the atrocities already committed on Ukrainian soil and which are there for all to see. “The substantial problem is that the signals are likely to clear and concrete can only arrive in the face of increasingly consistent concessions. Equally relevant is the time factor. Because, as Germany’s Minister of Cooperation and Trade Svelja Schulze pointed out, “Russia’s unjustifiable, unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine is disrupting agricultural production, supply chains and trade and is bringing the prices of food and fertilizers to an unprecedented level ”. The war on wheat must be closed quickly, and with a truce that allows for a solution to be found, without giving in completely to the blackmail of Russia and leaving an open margin for achieving a sustainable peace in Ukraine. (by Fabio Insenga)