LONDON, March 14 (Reuters) – A worldwide meals disaster looms except the warfare in Ukraine is stopped as a result of fertiliser costs are hovering so quick that many farmers can now not afford soil vitamins, Russian fertiliser and coal billionaire Andrei Melnichenko stated on Monday.
A number of of Russia’s richest businessmen have publicly known 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 US and its European allies have solid Putin’s invasion as an imperial-style land seize.
They’ve sanctioned Russian businessmen – together with EU sanctions on Melnichenko, frozen state property and reduce off a lot of the Russian company sector from the worldwide economic system in an try to drive Putin to alter course.
Putin refuses to. He has known as the warfare 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, advised Reuters in a press release emailed by his spokesman.
“One of many victims of this disaster will likely be agriculture and meals,” he stated.
Melnichenko is the founding father of EuroChem, one in every of 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 1000’s, displaced greater than 2 million folks, and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and america, the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
FOOD WAR?
Putin stated 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 serious 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 warfare “has already led to hovering costs in fertilisers that are now not inexpensive to farmers,” Melnichenko stated.
Meals provide chains already disrupted by COVID-19 had been now much more distressed.
“Now it would result in even larger meals inflation in Europe and sure meals shortages on this planet’s poorest nations,” he stated.
Russia’s commerce and trade ministry advised the nation’s fertiliser producers to quickly halt exports earlier this month.
Worldwide meals and feed costs may rise by as much as 20% on account of the battle in Ukraine, triggering a bounce in international malnourishment, the United Nations meals company stated on Friday. learn extra
PHYSICS STUDENT
Melnichenko, who was simply 19 when the Soviet Union collapsed, began out buying and selling international foreign money whereas a physics pupil at Moscow State College.
A mathematician who as soon as dreamt of changing into a physicist, Melnichenko dropped out of college to dive into the chaotic – and generally lethal – world of post-Soviet enterprise.
He based MDM Financial institution however within the Nineties was nonetheless too minor to participate within the privatisations beneath President Boris Yeltsin which handed the choicest property of a former superpower to a gaggle of businessmen who would develop into often known as the oligarchs resulting from their political and financial clout.
Melnichenko then started shopping for up usually distressed coal and fertiliser property. 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 via membership in a enterprise council, simply as dozens of enterprise folks from each Russia and Europe have completed 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 property in Russia, Lithuania, Belgium, Brazil and Kazakhstan.
Italian police final week seized his 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 Susan Fenton and Angus MacSwan
: .
