US to buy Ukrainian grain for UN Food Programme amid global starvation crisis

The US grain shipment cannot come soon enough for the millions under threat of starvation on the Horn of Africa, Lewis Warner reports.

The United States is stepping up to buy about 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine in the next few weeks for an upcoming shipment of food aid from ports no longer blockaded by war, the World Food Programme (WFP) chief said.

The final destinations for the grain are not confirmed and discussions continue, David Beasley said.

But the planned shipment, one of several the UN agency that fights hunger is pursuing, is more than six times the amount of grain that the first WFP-arranged ship from Ukraine is now carrying toward people in the Horn of Africa at risk of starvation.

Their bone-dry communities face yet another failed rainy season within weeks that could tip parts of the region, especially Somalia, into famine. Already, thousands of people have died.

The World Food Program says 22 million people are hungry.

“I think there’s a high probability we’ll have a declaration of famine” in the coming weeks, Beasley said.

Ukraine was the source of half the grain that WFP bought last year to feed 130 million hungry people.

Russia and Ukraine signed agreements with the UN and the Turkish government last month to enable exports of Ukrainian grain for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February.

The keenly-awaited first aid ship from Ukraine is carrying 23,000 metric tons of grain, enough to feed 1.5 million people on full rations for a month, Beasley said.

It is expected to dock in Djibouti on 26 or 27 August, and the wheat is supposed to be shipped overland to northern Ethiopia, where millions of people in the Tigray, Afar and Amhara regions have faced not only drought but deadly conflict.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities reported shooting down Ukrainian drones in Crimea, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces pressed ahead with efforts to seize one of the few cities in eastern Ukraine not already under their control and kept up their strikes on communities in the north and south.

In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defences shot down a drone above the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks and followed explosions at a Russian airfield and ammunition depot on the peninsula this month.

An aide to Crimea’s governor, Oleg Kryuchkov, also said on Saturday that “attacks by small drones” triggered air-defence systems in western Crimea. He did not elaborate.

Russia considers Crimea to be Russian territory now, especially after building a huge bridge to the peninsula from the Russian mainland, but Ukrainian officials have never accepted its annexation by Russia.

Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, the Crimean city where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based, said the drone that was shot down there fell on the roof of the fleet headquarters and did not cause casualties or major damage.

But the incident underlined Russian forces’ vulnerability in Crimea.

A drone attack on the Black Sea headquarters on July 31 injured five people and forced the cancellation of observances of Russia’s Navy Day.

This week, a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea was hit by an explosion. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an airbase on Crimea.

Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility. But President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the blasts in Crimea, which Russia has blamed on “sabotage.”

The fighting continues as Ukrainians prepare to celebrate Ukraine's upcoming Independence Day.

The Ukrainian army showcased several captured Russian military equipment in Kyiv on Saturday 20 August as residents of Kyiv were seen walking along the city’s main street, Khreshchatyk, to take pictures and selfies with destroyed Russian armoured vehicles.

Some Ukrainians took to social media to say that the “exhibition” was Ukraine’s answer to Russia’s plan to hold a victory parade on Khreshchatyk.

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