Russia is using food supplies as a weapon as it did with energy supplies.

Russia is using a similar scheme with food supplies as it did with energy and weaponizing the sector with global repercussions, said Ursula von der Leyen to the World Economic Forum. The European Commission President said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is “the breadbasket” of the world, and the sanctions imposed against it had increased global prices of grain and fertilizer, triggering a food crisis. Russian troops are confiscating grain supplies and machinery from Ukraine and blocking exports from its ports in the Black Sea, said von der Leyen. She urged the international community to come together to counter what she called Moscow’s “blackmail” because deaths from food shortages due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “could be even greater than the lives lost directly in the war.”