Went to a talk by the Ukrainian Ambassador to
Singapore, Her Excellency (HE) Ms. Kateryna Zelenko at Duane Morris &
Selvam LLP. The talk centered two years into the war between Russia and
Ukraine.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022
was what you could call a pivotal moment in world history. This was what you
could call the first invasion of a sovereign state by another on European soil
since the Second World War. For the first time since 1991, when the Soviet
Union collapsed, we actually had world powers looking at a conflict and helping
“by proxy” rather than getting involved.
However, thanks to the Israeli invasion of the Gaza
strip, the global focus and the questions about international law have
inevitably moved from Ukraine to the Middle East. However, whilst the focus of
global attention may have shifted from Ukraine to the Middle East since October
2023, the key issues that the world faces today haven’t gone away and they’re
particularly visible in the war in Ukraine.
The key issue that the war in Ukraine and the war in
the Middle East has thrown up, is the question of food security. The need to
eat is an equalizer between social classes and ethnicities. While everyone is busy
talking about the latest development in this and that when it comes to growing
the economy, the reality is that the most basic industry and the backbone of
any society is ultimately food production. Simply put – no point having a lot of
money if there’s no food.
So, it goes without saying that in war situation where
one party is trying to annihilate the other, the first thing they will do is to
try and remove the ability of the other party to feed itself. One of the key
issues of the Israeli invasion of Gaza is the fact that people in Gaza no
longer have the ability to feed themselves. The same is true in Ukraine, where
the Russians have attacked Ukraine’s ability to feed itself.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/ukraine-s-food-exports-by-the-numbers/
Again, agriculture tends to get overlooked when we talk about the industries of the future. However, the importance of agriculture to a society and an economy becomes apparent when the industry is no longer there. Hence, if you look at history of conquest, you will notice that one of the first things an invader does is to burn the farms in order to make them unusable. Once the farms are out, there are no crops and there’s no food.
So, what have the Ukrainians done. It was a surprise
to find out that the Ukraine had a program called “Grain from Ukraine,” which was
started in November 2022, or over ten months after the Russians invaded. The
idea behind “Grain from Ukraine” is for the countries donating to the Ukraine
to bring Ukrainian grain and send it to the parts of the world that need it. Details
on the “Grain from Ukraine” program can be found in the following URL:
https://mfa.gov.ua/en/grain-ukraine
However, you could also argue that this is strategically
brilliant. Work on the understanding that countries only help out when they have
an interest to do so. By getting donor countries to export Ukrainian grain to
the “needy” parts of the world, Ukraine is reminding the world why it should
have an interest in helping the Ukrainians keep Ukraine, Ukrainian. This is a
country that plays an important part in global food security. Ukraine is
telling the world that it tries to use its agriculture power to keep the food
flowing and that we want a reliable partner in the global food supply chain
rather than one who could happily blackmail the rest of us if he had control
over so much of the world’s grain production.
Let’s face it, Ukraine has held out for so long
because its had help. Russia is the vastly larger power and Ukraine does need all
the help it can get. In the initial stages of the war, there were a lot of
emotional reasons to support Ukraine. However, when the war in Gaza started,
the emotions turned to the Middle East. However, when the “Grain from Ukraine”
program, there is a very rational reason for outsiders to ensure that the
Ukraine is able to hold its own and keep control of its vast agricultural production.
Being a “good guy” particularly when you’re not in the
best position to do anything for yourself let alone the rest of the world is
tough. However, the Ukrainians might have just proven that doing good whilst they
are under siege is not just morally correct but smart. The rest of us can learn
from that.
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