EXCLUSIVE World faces food crisis due to Ukraine war, Russian billionaire Melnichenko says

Russian billionaire Andrei Melnichenko attends a session in the course of the Week of Russian Enterprise, organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), in Moscow, Russia February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

LONDON, March 14 (Reuters) – A world meals disaster looms until the battle in Ukraine is stopped as a result of fertiliser costs are hovering so quick that many farmers can not afford soil vitamins, Russian fertiliser and coal billionaire Andrei Melnichenko stated on Monday.

A number of of Russia’s richest businessmen have publicly referred to as for peace since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion on Feb. 24, together with Mikhail Fridman, Pyotr Aven and Oleg Deripaska. learn extra

The USA and its European allies have solid Putin’s invasion as an imperial-style land seize that has to this point been poorly executed as a result of Moscow underestimated Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve to punish Russia.

The West has sanctioned Russian businessmen, together with European Union sanctions on Melnichenko, frozen state belongings and lower off a lot of the Russian company sector from the worldwide economic system in an try to pressure Putin to vary course.

Putin refuses to. He has referred to as the battle a particular navy operation to rid Ukraine of harmful nationalists and Nazis.

“The occasions in Ukraine are really tragic. We urgently want peace,” Melnichenko, 50, who’s Russian however was born in Belarus and has a Ukrainian mom, instructed Reuters in an announcement emailed by his spokesman.

“One of many victims of this disaster will likely be agriculture and meals,” stated Melnichenko, who based EuroChem, one among Russia’s largest fertiliser producers, which moved to Zug, Switzerland, in 2015, and SUEK, Russia’s high coal producer.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has killed hundreds, displaced greater than 2 million individuals, and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and america, the world’s two largest nuclear powers.

FOOD WAR?

Putin warned final Thursday that meals costs would rise globally resulting from hovering fertiliser costs if the West created issues for Russia’s export of fertilisers – which account for 13% of world output.

Russia is a significant producer of potash, phosphate and nitrogen containing fertilisers – main crop and soil vitamins. EuroChem, which produces nitrogen, phosphates and potash, says it is likely one of the world’s high 5 fertiliser corporations.

The battle “has already led to hovering costs in fertilisers that are not reasonably priced to farmers,” Melnichenko stated.

He stated meals provide chains already disrupted by COVID-19 have been now much more distressed.

“Now it’s going to result in even larger meals inflation in Europe and sure meals shortages on the planet’s poorest nations,” he stated.

Russia’s commerce and trade ministry instructed the nation’s fertiliser producers to briefly halt exports earlier this month.

PHYSICS STUDENT

Melnichenko, who was simply 19 when the Soviet Union collapsed, began out buying and selling international foreign money whereas a physics scholar on the prestigious Moscow State College.

A gifted mathematician who as soon as dreamt of changing into a physicist, Melnichenko dropped out of college to dive into the chaotic – and typically lethal – world of post-Soviet enterprise.

He based MDM Financial institution however within the Nineties was nonetheless too minor to participate within the privatisations below President Boris Yeltsin which handed the choicest belongings of a former superpower to a bunch of businessmen who would change into generally known as the oligarchs resulting from their political and financial clout.

Melnichenko then started shopping for up usually distressed coal and fertiliser belongings. His fortune in 2021 was estimated by Forbes to be $18 billion, making him Russia’s eighth richest man.

The European Union on Wednesday sanctioned Melnichenko for Russia’s invasion. It stated his attendance at a Kremlin assembly with Putin and 36 businessmen organised by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs confirmed he was “one of many main businesspersons concerned in financial sectors.”

Melnichenko “has no relation to the tragic occasions in Ukraine. He has no political affiliations,” his spokesman stated.

“To attract a parallel between attending a gathering by way of membership in a enterprise council, simply as dozens of enterprise individuals from each Russia and Europe have accomplished previously, and undermining or threatening a rustic is absurd and nonsensical,” the spokesman stated, including Melnichenko will dispute the sanctions.

On March 9, Melnichenko resigned as member of the board and non-executive director in each EuroChem and SUEK, and withdrew as their beneficiary, the spokesman stated. EuroChem has manufacturing belongings in Russia, Lithuania, Belgium, Brazil and Kazakhstan.

Italian police final week seized Melnichenko’s yacht – the 143-metre (470-foot) Crusing Yacht A – which has a price ticket of 530 million euros ($578 million).

Reporting by Man Faulconbridge; Enhancing by Kim Coghill, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Susan Fenton

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