Ukraine announced plans to feed at least 5 million people facing acute hunger by the end of spring 2023, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
"We have launched the initiative - ‘Grain From Ukraine’,” said Zelenskyy in a video address to this week’s G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. "And the first vessel - Nordwind - leaves for Ethiopia with 27,000 tons of wheat on board. This is the amount that can feed almost 100,000 people per year.”
He added: "There can be many such ships from Ukraine, and therefore there will be many people in poor countries who are saved from starvation.”
Zelenskyy announced the program as part of a set of 10 solutions he proposed in order to end the war with Russia, which started this February.
Zelenskyy also told the summit that a U.N.-brokered deal that has eased a Russian blockade of Ukrainian Black Sea ports should be extended indefinitely and include two more ports - Mykolaiv and Olvia.
Three ports are already included in the U.N.-brokered deal, which Zelenskyy said had enabled Ukraine to export more than 10 million tons of food products since July. The deal is set to expire on Nov. 19 and talks are under way on extending it.
Giving more details on the program, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, wrote on Telegram: "Its essence is the direct purchase of agricultural products by the countries participating in the project from Ukrainian producers and their transfer to countries on the brink of famine.”
Stating that the program will be conducted in partnership with the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), Yermak underlined that the Nordwind vessel left for Ethiopia with the support of the WFP and the German government.
"The program envisages providing grain to at least 5 million people by the end of spring 2023,” Yermak said.
He added that he will ensure coordination and implementation of the program, which seems in part designed to address criticisms that most of the Ukrainian grain exported under a deal reached this July went to Western nations, not needy countries.
That deal is set to expire on Saturday, though many global actors, from the U.N. to Türkiye — which helped broker the landmark deal — are pushing for its renewal.
Yermak also said a global group to fight hunger is being created under Ukraine’s initiative.
"The International Coordination Group for the Prevention of Hunger includes representatives of the governments of countries, corporations, patrons who can directly influence the provision of food needs of millions of people in the world,” said Yermak.
Ukraine is one of the world's largest grain exporters and the sea blockade following Russia's invasion of the country in February contributed to a global food crisis.
Andriy Yermak, the chief of Ukraine's presidential staff, said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukraine would set aside a portion of harvested wheat for partner countries to purchase on behalf of African countries on the brink of famine.
"The programme envisages providing grain to at least 5 million people by the end of spring 2023," he wrote, adding that it would be implemented in partnership with the World Food Programme.
"We will not give the Russians any opportunity to create a Holodomor 2.0," Yermak added, referring to the death by starvation of millions of people in what was then Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s.
He said a ship carrying 27,000 tonnes of wheat had already left for Ethiopia as part of the program and in coordination with the German government.
