The United States and Ukraine are working on a “Plan B” to guarantee the export of grain after the Russian attack on the port of Odessa, said Samatha Power, administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Plan B involves road, rail and river routesand adjusting rail systems so they can be compatible with those in Europe to enable faster exports,” he said in an interview with CNN on Sunday in Nairobi, after visiting flood-ravaged regions of Kenya and Somalia.
We are drawing up a contingency plan because we cannot in any way trust what Vladimir Putin says,” he added.
Power stressed that despite the guarantees provided by a contingency plan, it will not be better for “Putin to end the blockade and for the grain to leave the ports in the most efficient way possible.”
Russia, which has been carrying out a military offensive in Ukraine since February 24, bombed the port of Odessa on Saturday, vital for the flow and marketing of Ukrainian grain.
“Putin spat in the face” of the UN and Turkey. The port of Odessa was attacked by Russia a day after the agreement to export grain
These attacks were carried out the day after the signing of agreements between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations Organization (UN), to allow the export of cereals from Ukrainian territory.
kyiv and Moscow sign an agreement with Turkey and the UN to unblock cereal exports
In that context, the US official also said the deal could work “despite Russia” “immediately turning its back” on it by bombing the port of Odessa.
Powell also said that cereal prices will fall if distribution is ensured and called on countries that play “leading roles in the international system, as the People’s Republic of China clearly aspires to do,” to work more consistently to prevent the food crisis “from becoming a catastrophe.”
Source: Observadora
