Russia’s war in Ukraine has dragged on for over 100 days, an effort the Kremlin still calls a “special military operation.”
While Russian forces may have advanced in eastern Ukraine, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said those gains have been “slow and costly” as part of Moscow’s “strategy of attrition.”
Meanwhile, the United Nations continues its work to release grain trapped in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The agency estimates 1.5 billion people are in need of the food and fertilizer stuck behind Russia’s blockade, emphasizing resuming exports is essential for preventing another crisis.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, blames “short-sighted” Western policy for the state of global food and energy markets. He also pushed off blame, saying the food crisis began with the coronavirus pandemic and not Russia’s “special military operation.”
The U.K. Ministry of Defence said Russia’s offensive in northern Ukraine “ended in a costly failure.”
The ministry said Russian forces were spread “too thinly without enough support from artillery and combat aircraft.” It said those efforts were based on “wildly optimistic assessments about the welcome Russian troops would receive in Ukraine.”
“Russia has now adopted a ‘strategy of attrition’ and is achieving slow and costly gains in the Donbas” region of eastern Ukraine, the ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the West for problems in global food and energy markets, warning new sanctions would only exacerbate the situation.
“It’s an absolutely short-sighted, erroneous, I would say, simply a stupid policy which leads into a dead end,” Putin said, according to Russia’s news agency.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has roiled the global economy, disrupting global food and energy supply chains. The two nations produce about 30% of the world’s wheat and barley. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported that food prices are at the highest levels ever recorded.
“The unfavorable situation in the global food market did not begin to take shape yesterday or even from the moment Russia launched a special military operation in the Donbass and Ukraine. It began to take shape as early as February 2020 in the process of combatting the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic,” he said, according to a TASS report translated by News.
Putin’s comments come as the U.N. continues its efforts to release grain trapped in Ukraine’s Black Sea ports due to Russia’s blockade.
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