Ukraine remains world's leading grain exporter despite war - expert

Despite Russia's large-scale aggression, Ukraine remains one of the world's leading exporters of grain and food products, and it is in the interests of the whole world to support Ukraine's efforts to export agricultural products and its economy.

Special Envoy for Ukraine at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belgium Jan De Pauw said this during a panel discussion titled "Ensuring Global Food Security" in Ankara, Ukrinform reports.

"Ukraine is among the world's leading exporters of grain, food products, and agricultural products. Thus, it is one of the guarantors of global food security due to its exports and its nature. And when this is prevented, when it is actually made impossible in many respects, as it was at the beginning of the full-scale invasion and still is, then you need to support Ukraine in maintaining these efforts," he said.

According to him, the main three reasons why Belgium actively supports efforts to ensure global food security are the global scale and its impact on the lives of millions of people around the world, support for Ukraine and its fight against Russian aggression, as well as countering Russia's efforts to distort information and hinder the supply of food from Ukraine to world markets.

"It is important to keep the Ukrainian economy as viable as possible and make sure that the Ukrainian state can function. [...] I think that preserving the opportunities of the Ukrainian economy, production, export, and trade is very important in order to support Ukraine itself," he said.