“Ukraine is one of the world’s largest food security donors. And we keep this our meaning despite everything. Despite such a colonial challenge from the Russian Federation. This war is a war against the lives of Ukrainians, against our people, our families.”, — write: www.president.gov.ua
I am glad that for the third time we are gathering here, in Kyiv, in Ukraine, to support one of our most important and symbolic initiatives – the Grain From Ukraine program.
The program is really working successfully and will be expanded. I want to thank everyone who makes this possible.
Today, important figures, important volumes are heard here, the most important of which are the real lives of people: children, families in different parts of the world. And it is not only Europe, of course, which is very important for us. This is both Africa and Asia – the whole world. These are the countries that we really helped. Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen.
Now there was a very sensitive video. And Nigeria, and Gaza, etc. Many corners. And I am very happy and want to thank you. And I would like us to applaud the whole team, all the countries that provide all this – such support of people. They give people life. Thank you sincerely!
In total, 20 million people have already been saved from starvation during the operation of Grain From Ukraine – our “Grain from Ukraine” program. And this is only thanks to one of our humanitarian programs.
In general, Ukrainian food exports provide 400 million people in 100 countries of the world.
Ukraine is one of the world’s largest food security donors. And we keep this our meaning despite everything. Despite such a colonial challenge from the Russian Federation. This war is a war against the lives of Ukrainians, against our people, our families.
I want to remind you that the full-scale Russian invasion began, in particular, with the blockade of Ukrainian ports by the Russian fleet. It started with this. And Russia understood very well what the consequences would be from this. They wanted these consequences, certainly a terrible result for the whole world – not only for Ukraine.
They wanted world food prices to rise. And it’s not just a desire for more money, more profits. Of course it is, and it was in Russia. But it is primarily about power. If they can create a food disaster, then they can subjugate a people who depend on food imports – any food. This is extremely sensitive for most people in Africa, for a significant number of people in Asia. And in Europe or America, the question of prices is always a question of stability in one or another region. Above all, stability for people’s lives.
That is why it is so important that we continue to stand together in protecting food security, the security of food supply routes and other critical export goods.
Only during the operation of the export food corridor in our Black Sea – from July last year to this month – 321 objects of the infrastructure of our ports were damaged by Russian missiles and Iranian drones. More than 20 ships – ordinary civilian ships – were also damaged in the strikes. And we are talking about ships of other countries. This is not about Ukrainian vessels. More than 60 targeted strikes specifically on the food infrastructure.
With this war against Ukraine, Russia showed that there are no countries in the world that are really far from each other. Everything in the world is now very strongly connected. There is no distance. There is none.
Food prices in Egypt, Libya, Nigeria and other countries of Africa and the African continent directly depend on whether farmers and agricultural companies in Ukraine can work normally. How quickly we can clear our fields of Russian mines depends on how quickly the usual stability of the food market will be restored. And here I would like to thank, of course, our people, our farmers – there is very little time for this gratitude during the war. First of all, we mention our priority – our army, and that’s fair. But I want to tell you: how much because of this war, how much because of the dense mining of our lands, a large amount – we are talking about hundreds of thousands of hectares – how many people were crippled because of this, but the farmers continued to work, continued to do all this, despite that technically there was not enough equipment in Ukraine to demine such volumes. I want to thank all the farmers, all the people on earth who fought hunger all over the world. Thank you very much!
And it is important for Ukraine to remind about it these days, now, when we remember all the victims of large-scale and artificial famine in Ukraine, famines of different times. First of all, the Holodomor of 1932–1933, which was organized against our people by the then authorities in Moscow. More than 90 years have passed, but the memory of it in Ukrainian families has not faded and cannot fade, because millions of people died. Of course, we should value every person, tens, thousands, hundreds of thousands. But when it comes to the Holodomor, it is a real genocide, because millions of people died.
We do not forget that all this was. And we must do everything in order not to allow Russia, again thanks to its colonial ambitions, and anyone else to make similar disasters that happened in Ukraine – similar disasters all over the world.
I want to thank everyone who is here today. Thank you to all diplomatic representatives and all our guests for commemorating the victims of the Holodomor. Thank you for being with Ukraine at such an important moment.
Glory to Ukraine!
