Moscow: West is to blame for rising cost of food

(MENAFN) According to a senior member of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Western nations are obstructing a decline in food prices by refusing to withdraw their limitations on Russian grain exports.

In an interview with the RIA news agency that was published on Friday, Alexander Kinshchak, the director of the ministry's Middle East and North Africa Department, stated that sanctions in recent months had prompted Russia to modify its export methods.

“US and EU sanctions, which include disconnecting Russian banks from SWIFT and blocking money transfers in dollars and euros, penalizing companies that ensure our cargoes, prohibiting Western vessels from entering Russian ports and closing access of domestic merchant fleet to European countries have complicated logistics, including a sharp increase in freight costs,” he elaborated.

“We had to promptly work out alternative transport and logistics schemes and agree on new channels and forms of financial settlements using other currencies, including the ruble,” Kinshchak asserted, highlighting that transportation and insurance prices in the Black Sea have faced additional problems due to “chaotic mining” of its waters by the Ukrainian military.

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