Africa 'taken hostage' by Russia's invasion, Zelenskyy says
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — “Africa is actually taken hostage” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid catastrophically rising food prices, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the African Union continental body during a closed-door address on Monday.
It took weeks of requests for Zelenskyy to address African nations, many of whom retain close ties to Russia and failed to support a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion earlier this year.
Ukraine and the West hope to weaken those ties by emphasizing that Russia’s actions are to blame for dramatic shortages of wheat and edible oils and skyrocketing food and fuel prices across the African continent of 1.3 billion people. Russia's blockade of Ukrainian exports is a “war crime,” the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on Monday.
“They are trying to use you and the suffering of the people to put pressure on the democracies that have imposed sanctions on Russia,” Zelenskyy told the AU, whose leaders recently met in Russia with President Vladimir Putin and echoed Moscow’s assertion that Western sanctions are in part to blame for the food security crisis. They appealed to other countries to ensure grain and fertilizer exports from Russia and Ukraine aren’t blocked.
Read more: https://thepublicsradio.org/article/africa-taken-hostage-by-russias-invasion-zelenskyy-says
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