Information is being spread online that Poltava residents stand in long lines for bread and even fight for the opportunity to get it for free. Entire families supposedly come to stand in the cold, since “only one loaf of bread is given per person”.

This “news” is nothing more than fiction. They write about this, in particular, in the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. Thus, Ukrainian and foreign volunteers, regional military administrations, and private entrepreneurs bring and distribute free bread to everyone in need, especially in settlements affected by Russian aggression. However, no unrest was ever recorded. Information about “fights for bread in Ukraine” is not found either in the Ukrainian media or in law enforcement agencies. In addition, the creators of the fake used an arbitrary photograph from the Internet, which did not reflect the context at all, to make what was written more credible.

By spreading this disinformation, Russian propaganda seeks to convince the domestic population of Russia that life is very, very bad for people in Ukraine. To be fair, the lives of every Ukrainian did change once and for all after Russia invaded Ukraine. The “Russian World” brought with it pain, despair, sadness and suffering. However, there are many programs, both domestic and foreign, that today help people affected by the war return to normal life.

Let us recall that on March 16, 2022, the Russians fired artillery at the line for bread in Chernihiv. As a result, 14 people were killed and dozens were injured.

Read also: In Chernihiv, because of “poverty”, people allegedly stand in long lines for bread

Propagandists spreading pro-Russian rhetoric in traditional media and social networks are actively distributing a video showing a large line in Chernihiv for free bread. They say that this indicates hunger and the unhappy state of people in Ukraine, caused, in particular, by “European integration”. However, this is manipulation.

The analysts of the StopFake project paid attention to it. They found that the video did not really indicate “hunger and trouble”. In fact, it shows the distribution of bread to people who took part in the gospel ministry in Chernihiv. Representatives of the evangelical church gave bread to their parishioners not because of “hunger”, but as a gift after the service. Humanitarian support of parishioners is standard practice of many evangelical religious organizations around the world and does not indicate “poverty and destruction” in the country. The promotion uses specially baked bread with the inscription “Victory” from the Craft Bakery in Kyiv.

By spreading such manipulations, Russian propaganda is trying to strengthen its narratives about “poverty and destitution” in Ukraine, which allegedly resulted from the “collective West”. Russian propaganda became more active in disseminating this message against the backdrop of news about the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.

Propaganda anonymous telegram channels spreading pro-Russian rhetoric claim that Ukraine is on the verge of a food crisis due to problems with the dairy industry. Like, Ukrainians do not buy their own milk, because there is no money to buy it, and the export of dairy products from Ukraine fails for some reason.

Although the authors of such reports recall that the number of cattle has decreased due to the war, they do not point to Russian aggression as the root cause of these problems. Everyone is again pushed to the West, which supposedly helps only with rhetoric. They also transfer responsibility for this to the countries of Central Asia and Moldova. As a result, according to propagandists, Ukraine is on the verge of bankruptcy and a food crisis.

However, its main reason was the aggression of Russia against Ukraine, since the fighting restricts both the cultivation of livestock and feed, and the sale of dairy products. In addition, plant-based milk alternatives such as almond, soy, oat, coconut milk, etc are becoming more popular due to ethical consumer concerns or intolerance to the lactose found in cow's milk. With this in mind, dairy consumption is declining globally.

By spreading such messages, propagandists want to artificially increase the scale of the problem and cause panic among Ukrainians. In addition, in this way, they traditionally want to shift the responsibility for Russia's actions to third parties.

Such a message was circulated on social networks, in particular on telegram channels spreading pro-Kremlin rhetoric. Reports say that in Ukraine they seem to have started selling a “bread product” made from “the stale remains of unsold bread”. As proof, the authors of the messages add a video, which allegedly shows that in one of the grocery online stores you can buy the mentioned “bread product” of the “Kyivkhlib” (Kyiv bread) company. It is not true.

The fact-checkers of the StopFake project investigated the case and found out that the information about the sale of a “bread product” from the “stale remains of unsold bread” is not true. First, fact-checkers decided to check the authenticity of the video. They got acquainted with the range of products from “Kyivkhlib” and came to the conclusion that the “bread product” does not exist in the range. To make sure, the checkers also called the Kyivkhlib hotline, where they denied the presence of a “bread product” in the company's assortment. In addition, analysts also failed to find a similar product of any other manufacturers for sale. Fact-checkers are convinced that the video was fabricated.

As for the thesis about the “deficit of bread” throughout Ukraine, it is also untrue. Analysts explain that the head of the All-Ukrainian agrarian council, Denys Marchuk, said earlier that there is no shortage of bread in Ukraine at present, but its price may rise during 2023. In March 2023, the State statistics service reported that due to the crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, prices for bread products increased by 26% over the past year. However, we are not talking about any “deficit of bread”.

Propagandists spread this fake to intimidate Ukrainians and cause them to distrust their own state. It seems that Ukraine cannot provide its people with food, electricity or gas. Enemies are trying to create the appearance that Ukrainians live unbearably, and the state does not care about them, supposedly forgets and does not take into account the “food shortage”, offering Ukrainians low-quality products.

Russian media write about it. Allegedly, there is a critical humanitarian situation in Mykolaiv, there is nothing to eat and drink, people live without electricity and heating.

The humanitarian situation in Mykolaiv, like in many other cities in Ukraine, is difficult, but not critical, as pro-Kremlin media mouthpieces claim.

It is precisely because of the daily rocket attacks on Mykolaiv and the attacks of Russians on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine that is the root cause why in Mykolaiv, as in other Ukrainian cities, interruptions in energy, heat and water supply caused to the civilian population.

However, all over Ukraine, including Mykolaiv, “Points of invincibility” have been deployed, where you can warm up, charge your gadgets, and receive medical and humanitarian assistance. Mykolaiv is supplied with all necessary food products, essential goods, and medicines. There are many grocery stores in the city.

Messages of such content were shared by the Russian propaganda media. Like, “the head of the Ukrainian junta, Mr. Zelenskyi”, during the G20 demanded guarantees of food security for Ukraine. Like, Kyiv does not want to be responsible for the fact that there is not enough food in Ukraine, because, according to propagandists, it was necessary to immediately stop the export of grain across the country's borders if Ukraine does not have enough food. The reports added that Russia, in turn, would certainly help Ukraine with food, but only within those territories that it allegedly recognized as its own - in the temporarily occupied territories.

Analysts of the EU vs Disinfo project drew attention to the case. On November 15, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi spoke at the G20 summit and said that Ukraine had taken part in the World Food Security Program and launched the Grain from Ukraine initiative to help countries facing famine. He did not ask for help from Russia and did not declare a famine in Ukraine in 2022/2023. However, he mentioned the energy security plan, because Russia is methodically destroying the Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter.

“You can see what the Russian terror is aimed at now. This is an attempt to turn the cold into a weapon. A weapon against millions of people”, Zelenskyi said. In fact, the fact that Ukraine could potentially have a problem with food is not the fault of the Ukrainian authorities or the West, but of Russia, which started a war on the territory of Ukraine, stole Ukrainian grain and vegetables from the temporarily occupied territories, and so on.

The problem due to the lack of Ukrainian grain may also arise in other countries, and Russia is also to blame for this. However, it is beneficial for Russia to promote the thesis that Zelenskyi and the leaders of the so-called Western countries are driving Ukraine and other states to a food crisis.

Like, it was they who with their policies brought people to troubles, because they do not care about the lives of ordinary Ukrainians and Europeans. From this angle, Russia is no longer an aggressor, but a savior of peoples, because it is ready to “help” and correct the mistakes of the leaders of other countries. This is a common tactic of propagandists: shifting responsibility for their actions to others.

Such messages against the backdrop of the theme of global hunger are distributed by anonymous telegram channels controlled by the Federal security service (FSB).

Russian propagandists distributed a map with food risk zones developed by The Economist. Allegedly, according to them the population of Ukraine will be under the threat of starvation as in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, and the Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, are exporting and selling everything. Like, the political elite will plunder grain, destroy Ukraine, cease business, leave people alone with all the problems, and go to the West.

In fact, The Economist used a food risk map to illustrate the article "How men with guns aggravate global hunger". The journalist believes that "Mr. Putin's senseless war" will increase hunger on a global scale. He writes that famine in Ethiopia and Afghanistan was caused by armed people, but this crisis did not affect the whole world. Putin is “powerful enough” to create conditions in which “millions of children worldwide will grow up to be less intelligent, and thus lead poorer and less productive lives”.

Russian propagandists have been writing about the fact that the Ukrainian government is about to leave or has already fled to Europe from the first day of a full-scale war. In this way, they want to intimidate Ukrainians and push them into thinking that Putin is their only support omitting the facts that Ukrainian farmers cannot work productively due to the constant shelling of the Russian army, that the Russians burned wheat fields and prevent Ukrainian ships from delivering grain to the countries that are on the point of facing famine.

In connection with an unsuccessful attempt to withdraw from the grain deal, Russia is urgently throwing several contradictory theses into the information space in order to confuse the audience and prevent them from asking a rational question: why, when Russia "withdrew" from the agreement, ships with Ukrainian grain continued to leave ports and deliver it to other countries?

In fact, after Ukraine, the UN and Turkey "informed Russia" that they would extend the agreement, despite Russian statements, the weakness of Russia's position was demonstrated to the whole world. It cannot blockade Ukrainian ports, it cannot destroy Turkish ships, and it cannot blackmail Ukraine again because of successes at the front, since now Russia is losing. Therefore, Russia was simply forced to "return" to the agreement and its propaganda had to somehow explain it to the audience.

The explanations are as follows: Ukraine gave written guarantees that it would not use the humanitarian corridor for military operations. But this is not true: Ukraine did not give additional guarantees. She gave them first and carried them out. But now Russian propaganda is forced to explain that "additional guarantees have been provided, but Russia still does not believe in any guarantees from Ukraine". And therefore reserves the right to "withdraw" from the agreement again, whenever it pleases.

The second explanation is that Russia has returned to fulfilling its obligations in order to prevent the West from "manipulating" that Russia provokes famine in the poorer countries of Asia and Africa, and thus win over the "global South". And to show that Russia is a stable and reliable partner”. And that is despite the fact that in the last 8 months Russia massively violated contracts, agreements, promises and even guarantees. It is unlikely that the reputation of a terrorist and an aggressor can be corrected by poor compliance with a single agreement.

Such a strategy looks especially disastrous against the backdrop of numerous statements by Russian officials who on November 1 stated that Russia's return to the grain agreement on the previous terms was never possible, and the next day the agreement started working again according to the same rules.

The Russian edition of RIA Novosti published an article entitled “Food is running out in Europe. It is Russia, of course, to blame”, which says that a food crisis will soon come in Europe. This is a common thesis of Russian disinformation, which has several modifications and waves of distribution. The last one is that the “famine” in Europe, predicted back in March, did not happen, and now it is being postponed until the next year, 2023.

In any case, there will be food in Europe but it will rise in price due to general inflation and fuel prices, and the range of goods may also be reduced due to the destruction of logistics. And Russia is really to blame for both, waging war against Ukraine that is a supplier of many types of agricultural crops, and the sanctions that Europe was forced to impose on Russia because of its invasion.

But Russian propaganda insists that politicians who did not want to get cheap gas from Russia will be to blame for the imaginary famine in Europe, although there will be no famine in Europe. But in the poorer countries of Asia and Africa it may happen. And that is why Russian propaganda constantly downplays this threat and generally invents a famine in Europe in order to shift the responsibility from Russia for the food crisis to other states.

Anonymous Telegram channels controlled by the FSB write about this. With this "provocation," they will allegedly try to strengthen the anti-Russian rhetoric that it is Russia that provokes hunger in developing countries.

Russia is a terrorist country that blackmails the world with hunger. It slowed down the grain corridor for weeks before blocking it, noted President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

According to him, Russia is the only one to blame because food products will become more expensive from West Africa to East Asia. Russia is the reason why people in Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia are left with catastrophic food shortages.

The Russian leadership is interested in exacerbating the food crisis, so it will do everything not to sign any agreements and not to unblock the grain corridor.

The fake about the sinking of one of the grain ships is probably a signal that the Russians already have such a plan. Propagandists work to preemptively shift responsibility for their crime onto someone else in advance.

After Saturday's "attack against ships of the Black Sea Fleet" in Sevastopol, Russian resources spread several messages. Russia is allegedly withdrawing from the "grain agreement" due to "an attack against ships of the Black Sea Fleet involved in guaranteeing the safety of vessels delivering Ukrainian grain within the so-called Black Sea Initiative." Because of this, on October 31, Russia will initiate a meeting of the UN Security Council. A ship is a combat unit of a fleet that is a legitimate target in wartime. The Kremlin claims the attack was on ships, not civilian sea transport vessels.

The humanitarian corridor for grain export from Ukraine was allegedly used to cover the attack on the Sevastopol raid. The Ministry of Defense of Russia stated that this attack was a terrorist attack by Kyiv with the participation of specialists from Great Britain. There is no evidence for this. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for this attack.

The South's defense forces assume that the explosions in occupied Sevastopol could have been caused by the Russian invaders' failed launches of air defense missiles. Propagandists assure Kyiv's fault that Europeans will be left without grain because it was not delivered to Africa. As you know, 72% of wheat went to Africa, Asia, and Turkey in two months. In fact, before this "attack," Russia threatened to withdraw from the "grain agreement" if its requirements were not met.

As the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, noted, Russia found a fictitious excuse for withdrawing from the agreement.

This message is again spread by the Russian Kremlin media, denying the tragedy that Ukrainians experienced in 1932-33. This time, the "news" began to be promoted against the message that the Russian occupiers dismantled a monument to the victims of the Holodomor in occupied Mariupol. It was dismantled because, according to "historical sources," famine in the regions of the South of Russia and then the Soviet Union was allegedly a recurring phenomenon. Therefore, due to the famine in 1932-33, the tremendous losses were not in Ukraine but other regions of the Ukrainian SSR. As analysts of the Myth Detector project write, the propagandists also claimed that the "authorities" of the city are not fighting the historical monument but are removing "a symbol of misinformation created at the state level." In fact, misinformation about the Holodomor has been circulating for decades. Natural phenomena didn't cause the famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. The tragedy was the result of Joseph Stalin's purposeful policy. Falsifying the number of victims during the famine and connecting the famine with natural phenomena were initially part of the propaganda of the Soviet Union. Russian propaganda has now adopted this method, which seeks to hide the crimes of the Stalin regime and deny the genocide.

A video of a shoving match in a supermarket with the participation of dozens of elderly people is circulating on pro-Russian Telegram channels. This video was allegedly filmed recently in Kyiv.

As fact-checkers of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security found out, Russian propagandists deliberately indicated in the message about the people of Kyiv, even though they are residents of the Russian Omsk. This video is already five years old; in May 2017, a supermarket in Omsk set a promotional discount on sugar (minus three rubles per kilogram), which caused quite a stir among buyers. The video, made in the store, gained hundreds of thousands of views, and local TV channels even made stories about it. In March, the situation repeated itself in many Russian cities. However, it was not the discounts that provoked it but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the spread of rumors about the future deficit. Russian propagandists regularly turn to the food crisis in Ukraine to intimidate and sow panic among Ukrainians, as well as to show how bad things are in Ukraine. On October 10, when the Russians bombarded the center of Kyiv with missiles, they spread the word that stores in Kyiv seemed to be running out of products.

Russian propagandists spread this information and as evidence, they cite photos of empty shelves. It is not true. Firstly, the photo caption doesn`t mention the information about the time and store in which the photos were taken. Secondly, on October 10 in Kyiv, the air alert lasted from 6:47 a.m. to 12:24 p.m. and started again at 3:14 p.m. At this time, all stores are closed and don`t serve customers. Thirdly, "Detector Media" visited one of Kyiv's supermarkets on the left bank of the city during the break between announcements of danger and made sure that all products were in abundance, there was not a single empty shelf, and there were no queues at the cash registers. There are also ATMs, it is possible to withdraw cash and buy food at kiosks.

The purpose of these about the lack of food products is intimidation, sowing panic, and fear. In the days when Russia is mass-attacking Ukraine with missiles, it is worth checking information especially carefully, not trusting anonymous channels, and, despite everything, trying to keep calm.

Ukraine mainly exports grain to Europe, and not to the countries of Asia and Africa, which need it the most. This fake was spread by the Russian media. They refer to the words of Russian leader Putin, which he said during one of his speeches, that only 60,000 tons of grain exported from Ukraine were sent to developing countries. And most, they say, “was delivered to the EU countries”.

This fake has been debunked in Britain. The corresponding statement appeared on Twitter of the British Ministry of Defense. “Putin's statement is not true. About 30% of the cargo was sent to low-income countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Russia is pursuing a deliberate strategy of disinformation in an attempt to shirk responsibility for food security issues, discredit Ukraine, and minimize opposition to its invasion”.

Also, this fake has been repeatedly refuted in Ukraine, in particular by the Ministry of Infrastructure. The Russians spread this fake to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community, interfere with its international trade and justify their military presence in the waters of the Black Sea.

This thesis is spreading on social networks, in particular in the Georgian segment of Facebook. The reports say that the alleged increase in prices for gas, electricity - “gas inflation” - also affected food prices. A photo collage with inflated prices for products is attached to messages of such content. However, this is manipulation.

According to experts from the Myth Detector project, the prices shown in the photo collage are actually proportional to the increase in gas prices and show us how much these products would cost if their prices grew at the same rate as gas prices. For example, a half liter of beer costs £3.95 on average, not £33.20 as illustrated in the collage.

This photo-skin was actually published by the Daily Mail earlier, although it does not reflect the increase in prices for products and services. The authors used the above logic. At the same time, the blogger disfigured this figure and called it a price “caused by gas inflation”. Propagandists are spreading these messages to show how bad things are in Europe, which has imposed sanctions against Russia. They seek to convince others that sanctions harm Europe itself more than Russia.

This message is promoted by pro-Russian telegram channels, in particular "Splietnitsa" (Gossip girl) and "MediaKiller". Reports say that allegedly Ukrainians need to prepare for a shortage of flour due to its sale to the West. The authors are trying to intimidate and hide the main facts.

In fact, according to the head of the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club, Ukraine grows flour 3-4 times more than it consumes. So with the pressure of oversupply on the domestic market, of course, prices collapsed. For example, according to the Ministry of Finance, this summer the price of flour was 1.69 UAH/ kg less than usual.

Therefore, with the opening of ports, prices will not rise rapidly, but will stabilize. In addition, according to the expert, the price will rise slowly and its level will remain low for now. Everyone is interested in raising prices, since farmers will not have the financial opportunity to continue their production.

The Russian propaganda machine has alleged that Ukraine ships commercial cargo to European ports, while African countries manage to make ends meet. In other words, the West allegedly lied, stating that the unblocking of Ukrainian ports is vital to the world's food security.

16 ships that deliver agricultural products to nine countries of the world left Ukrainian ports according to data provided by the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine. It has been reported that more than 438 tons of grain have already been delivered to the ports of Turkey, Ireland, Great Britain, China, Iran, Italy, and Korea, according to the UN, which monitors each Ukrainian ship. These are deliveries under pre-war contracts, StopFake fact-checkers learned.

At the same time, on August 15, a ship with 23 tons of grain as part of the World Food Aid Program left Djibouti. In total, they plan to send 30 tons of grain from Ukraine. UN experts approve the renewal of trade with Ukraine and note its impact which reflects in low prices. At the same time, Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports, in their opinion, has significantly increased the threat of famine in African countries, which are currently suffering from a decade-long drought.

Russian propagandists called the Ukrainian attempt to trade from the Odesa port a crime against Ukrainians, who "could get a real Holodomor-2". At the same time, they are distributing a video that allegedly shows a queue of several hundred Odessans for bread. In other videos, the queue is mistaken for the Mykolaiv queue, writes the project "On the other side of the news".

On August 1, for the first time in more than five months, a ship loaded with Ukrainian food (26,000 tons of corn) left the port of Odesa. The export of Ukrainian grain is, first of all, another step towards preventing world hunger. Unblocking the ports will provide at least a billion dollars in foreign exchange earnings for the economy and an opportunity for the agricultural sector to plan next year's sowing, fact-checkers write.

Secondly, export is an annual routine, and Ukraine is among the top ten grain exporters. In the ports of Odesa, 16 more ships blocked by Russia are waiting for their turn.

Russian media wrote that Egypt canceled contracts for the purchase of 240,000 tons of Ukrainian grain, which were supposed to be delivered in February-March, but was never shipped due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Allegedly, this was decided after the visit of the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, to Egypt. The reason, they say, is Ukraine's unreliable information about the volume of grain storage.

According to Reuters, Egypt canceled the contract because Ukraine did not fulfill its contractual obligations in March-April 2022 due to the blockade of the ports by Russian troops. Egypt officially assured the Ukrainian ambassador that it does not refuse cooperation and is ready to continue purchasing grain, writes StopFake.

"Egypt will conclude a new contract with Ukraine for the grain supply, as the Ukrainian side was unable to fulfill its contractual obligations in March-April, 2022, due to the blockade of the ports by Russian troops," said Mykhailo Nepran, the first vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He added that the previous agreement did not provide for a force majeure clause, so they canceled the contract, which cannot be fulfilled, to conclude a new one and make the purchase under it. 

Russian mass media spread the information that Ukraine is setting fire to wheat fields from a helicopter. In particular, it was about the Kherson region. This fake is part of the message that the world food crisis and famine are "provoked by Ukraine."

The Russian military is shelling agricultural land with incendiary shells. Earlier, the police of the Kherson region already opened criminal proceedings due to the purposeful destruction of the crop by Russian troops. "Large-scale fires occur daily; hundreds of hectares of wheat, barley, and other grain crops have already burned, and field protection strips and forests are burning. As you know, the destruction of bread is one of the most serious crimes in wartime. Currently, both the de-occupied settlements of the region and those temporarily under occupation are suffering from enemy shelling," the law enforcement officers said on July 9. In addition, there were fires in wheat fields from Russian shelling in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The Russian media spread such messages regarding the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Great Britain, Liz Truss. However, it is not true.

Russian propaganda used the comments of social network users for "news." As VoxCheck writes, the network cites a statement by Liz Truss dated June 23, 2022, that Britain and Turkey are cooperating on the issue of grain export from Ukraine. From this, social media users conclude that the partners are planning to buy Ukrainian grain much lower than the market price, thereby dooming Ukraine to famine. Commentators are also convinced that Russia "provides humanitarian aid to Ukrainians." At the same time, the West, on the contrary, "delays the end of the war by providing Ukraine with weapons and economic support."

Turkey and Great Britain really buy Ukrainian grain. However, this export will not lead to starvation. In May 2022, the Minister of Agrarian Policy said that 20 million tons of grain from last year's harvest remained in Ukraine, which is not needed for domestic consumption and is intended for export. Because of the war, the cultivated area in Ukraine has decreased by about 25%, but even under such conditions, Ukraine will fully provide for its domestic needs. Russia blocked Ukraine's seaports, through which 90% of grain was exported before the invasion. Great Britain and Turkey are interested in lifting the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports and resuming grain exports, as this will prevent or at least alleviate a world food crisis. The food crisis is closely related to the economic crisis, which affects all countries, including Turkey and Great Britain. There is also no reason to believe that in exchange for the help of these countries in lifting the blockade, Ukraine will agree to sell them food at a reduced price.

The Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine finds out that the Russian media, citing UN data, accuse Ukraine of increasing the number of starving people. According to the UN, due to Russia's war against Ukraine, the number of starving people will increase by 13 million.

The leadership of the Kremlin declares that they are supposedly ready for dialogue and want to resolve the food issue as quickly and painlessly as possible, but words differ from deeds.

The Russian military is destroying Ukrainian grain elevators, blocking ports, and setting farmers' fields on fire to undermine food security. The Russians continue to steal and export Ukrainian grain from the temporarily occupied territories.

The food crisis is another Russian blackmail lever they need to influence countries independent of Russia's energy resources. Thus, the Russians have created a global problem that they are trying to blame on Ukraine, terrorizing the civilized world.

On the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia website, a publication appeared under the title "Debunking the myths that the EU leadership feasts on." In it, Russia tries to justify its crimes on the territory of Ukraine. Among other things, the article "refutes the fake" that Russia does not steal grain from Ukraine and does not destroy agricultural and agrarian infrastructure. However, everything said by the Russians is not true.

This time, the fake was refuted by French fact-checkers in the True or False program. With the help of satellite images, videos from users of social networks, and based on open data about the movement of ships, the journalists proved that Russian ships have repeatedly taken out grain from the port in occupied Sevastopol. The video also shows how the Russians deliberately attacked Ukrainian agricultural facilities and stole agricultural machinery. Russia has repeatedly used the issue of supplying the world market with Ukrainian grain and agricultural products as a tool of blackmail due to a possible food crisis and famine in the countries of Africa and Asia. More details.

The Russian media is constantly speculating on the food crisis, which all international organizations warn about. Most often, they write that Ukraine itself blocks ports and therefore does not export grain to countries that usually buy Ukrainian agricultural products. Are they claiming that Ukraine is selling its grain in exchange for weapons, or is it exporting grain to Europe to create an artificial famine in Ukraine itself? But there is a new thesis - there is not enough Ukrainian wheat at all, so the lack of exports can not affect most people worldwide.

For example, Soloviev and other propagandists write about it on telegram channels. In fact, it is a manipulation. First, the 16 million tons Russian propagandists write about is only an approximate level of wheat exports. But Ukraine does not only export wheat - in 2020/2021, the state exported almost 60 million tons of grain. And among them - barley, beans, corn, flour, and oil. And Ukraine cannot export all these products to Asia and Africa due to Russia's blockade of ports.

Secondly, Ukraine had convenient transport links with the countries it supplied grain, making it cheaper. Now, due to the impossibility of delivering them there from Ukraine, they are becoming more expensive - and therefore, countries are forced to buy less. Several countries, including Egypt and Lebanon, are a quarter dependent on grain supplies from Ukraine. The figures are as follows: 25 million tons of corn and wheat are equivalent to the annual consumption of all the world's least developed economies. And it was Ukraine that met the grain needs of these countries. In addition, recent years have been dry in many countries, so grain production has declined altogether - and this could lead to famine in the world's poorer countries. Ukrainian grain is now in dire need of Ukrainian grain.