Vladimir Putin’s war machine will make world ‘hell on earth’ if not stopped – World News

The director of the United Nations World Food Program, David Beasley, has warned of a “scary” food shortage that could trigger widespread civil unrest in countries that depend on Ukraine’s wheat exports to feed their citizens

“Appalling” food shortages caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukraine’s port city of Odessa could lead to the collapse of law and order in dozens of countries if Vladimir Putin is not stopped.

David Beasley, head of the UN World Food Programme, told a conference in Addis Ababa on Thursday that “scary” food shortages are looming.

The official worries that countries that feed their citizens on wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia will be hit the hardest.

Some of these nations are the poorest in the world, including Somalia, Benin, Laos, Egypt and Sudan.

Mr Beasley said: “Even before the Ukraine crisis, we were faced with an unprecedented global food crisis due to Covid and fuel price hikes.

“At the time we thought it couldn’t get any worse, but this war was devastating.”

He now said the current climate is a “very, very scary time”.

“We face hell on earth if we don’t act immediately,” he added.

“The best we can do now is end this damn war in Russia and Ukraine and open the port.”

The troubles have been brewing for over a decade but have been exacerbated by the invasion, Mr Beasley said.

If left unaddressed, shortages could lead to “famine, destabilization of nations and mass migration” in some of the world’s poorest countries, he added.

The shortage has already sparked violent unrest in Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Pakistan and Peru.

Some sub-Saharan African countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad are also experiencing destabilization.

The rise in transport, fertilizer and fuel costs – caused by a deadly triple threat cocktail of Covid-19, climate change and war – has led to a rise in the number of people suffering from “chronic hunger”.

In just five years, the number of people suffering from chronic hunger has increased from 650 million to 810 million.

A massive 250 million more people are now experiencing “starvation” – a sustained “crisis level” of food insecurity Guardian Reports citing Mr. Beasley.

He described it as “marching towards hunger and not knowing where your next meal will come from”.

To ease the suffering, Mr Beasley urged the world elite to spend more on global hunger and urged Russia’s tyrannical dictator to open the port of Odessa.

Ukraine produces 42 percent of the world’s sunflower oil needs, 16 percent of its corn and 9 percent of its wheat.

Somalia is a country that relies entirely on Ukrainian wheat exports to feed its 15.89 million people.

Other countries like Egypt rely on Ukraine for the vast majority (80 percent) of their wheat imports.

The blockade of the ports of Odessa and the Pale Sea in Ukraine has resulted in the trapping of over 20 million tons of grain that would normally feed the world.

Earlier this month, Putin lashed out at Britain, blaming the country for the global food crisis.

The Kremlin chief said UK and US sanctions on Russian fertilizers are at the root of global food supply problems — even though such sanctions do not exist.

The former KGB agent-turned-despot said: “The situation will get worse because the British and Americans have imposed sanctions on our fertilizers.”

Putin went on to say that the best solution is to ship grain through Belarus, which conveniently would mean all sanctions against that country would have to be lifted.

In an interview with Russian state television, he called reports of a Russian export ban a “bluff”.

His army has captured much of Ukraine’s southern coast and its warships control access to Black Sea ports.

“If anyone wants to solve the problem of Ukrainian grain exports – please, the easiest way is through Belarus. Nobody is stopping him,” Putin said.