How Putin is weaponizing hunger | DW Documentary

Russian agriculture has seen an upswing since Vladimir Putin took office. Russia is now the world’s largest exporter of wheat - providing Putin with a new instrument of power.

On 24 February 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukraine in the largest military operation on the European continent since the end of World War Two. Putin aimed to take Kyiv and install a regime supporting his own interests. The price of grain exploded almost immediately. How was Putin able to destabilize global agricultural markets to such an extent with his attack on Ukraine?

This documentary was filmed in Russia, Ukraine and Egypt, the world’s largest grain importer. Political decision-makers and agricultural actors analyze how agricultural products and wheat in particular have been used by Moscow as a way of exerting pressure comparable with the arms industry and oil exports.

Ukraine is also a key producer of wheat. But the nation’s grain sector has been targeted by the Russian army throughout this war: farms and infrastructure have been destroyed and property and harvests seized in occupied areas.

After failing to capture Kyiv, Russia has since early 2022 focused its attentions on cultivated areas in eastern and southern Ukraine - some of the most fertile agricultural land on Earth.

Moscow’s goal is to subsume one of its biggest agricultural competitors. It also seeks to further destabilize grain markets, and eventually control them. Putin wants to strengthen Russia’s power as an agricultural state and divide the world up into new zones of influence.

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