Russia is not to be blamed for increasing food prices on the African continent, the Russian Embassy in Accra has said.
According to the Embassy, the Ghanaian media has fallen for a ploy by the West to blame Russia for increasing food prices worldwide.
In a series of tweets Thursday, the Russian Embassy accused the media of deliberately ignoring the fact that policies of the West had triggered economic challenges on the African continent since 2020.
“The Ghanaian press continues to carbon-copy the Western mainstream trying to persuade local readers that the Russian special military operation in Ukraine is to blame for the increase in bread prices,” the Russian Embassy said in a tweet.
“At the same time, journalists shyly keep silent that food and energy prices began to rapidly rise already in early 2020 due to systemic miscalculations of the financial and economic policies of Western countries during the coronavirus pandemic”.
Cause of increase
Instead, the Embassy attributed the increase in food prices to systematic errors of the West in forecasting its agricultural policy, global inflation, economic sanctions on Russia and a failed rapid transition of the European and North American countries from traditional fuels to “green” energy.
It added that illegitimate restrictions on Russia had also disrupted the functioning of the usual commodity-money chains.
“Sanctions against the Russian Federation have dealt a serious blow to the entire global economy, which has just begun to gradually recover from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” the statement said.
“It was the sanctions that led to the rupture of the existing supply and logistics chains, violated the financial settlement system of our economic operators, provoked the closure of foreign ports for Russian cargo and a ban on entering Russian harbors, and created threats of mass arrests of bulk carriers and refusal of their insurance. As a result, the sanctions created a situation in which the seller has a product of Russian grain, and the buyer has money and the desire to purchase it, but the sanctions simply do not allow it to be done. Neither physically to transport the grain, nor financially – to pay for it.
“At this point, an average reader would probably ask himself what is the purpose of all of this. The purpose is to isolate Russia. The collective West wanted to punish Russia, but it punished itself along with the rest of the world.
“Everyone suffered from this. Interruptions in supplies and settlements lead to a global shortage of products, contribute to further price hikes and threaten world food security. No deals are done, activity decreases, at the same time demand increases, which makes the prices rise. That’s the reason!”.
Source: graphic.com.gh