On the second day of the visit to Kyiv, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė participated in the Second Summit on the International Grain from Ukraine initiative by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
Global food supply security must not be used as a weapon, and countries that violate food security should receive an immediate response from the international community, underlined the Joint Declaration, adopted at the Summit.
Russia is not only waging war on the battlefield but also seeking to create a global food crisis by destroying Ukraine’s civilian port infrastructure and grain storage facilities, by blocking Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and by disrupting legitimate transit in Ukraine’s territorial waters, adds the document.
‘Today, we honour the memory of the millions of Ukrainians whose lives were lost in the Holodomor. Unfortunately, in the past, the world did not put an end to this genocide of the Ukrainian people through a series of artificially induced famines inflicted on Ukraine by the Stalinist regime. Through centuries, Russia has been changing its names but not its nature or its methods. Almost a century later, we are witnessing Russia’s devastation of Ukrainian civilian ports, grain storages, and the blockading of the Black Sea. Russia is once again trying to weaponize food, but this time it won’t be successful, not least thanks to the Grain from Ukraine initiative’, said Prime Minister Šimonytė.
The Prime Minister announced Lithuania’s pledge to contribute EUR 2 million to the humanitarian food programme Grain from Ukraine, implemented by Ukraine together with international partners. The same amount was allocated to this initiative in 2022.
In all international and bilateral formats, on all matters related to Ukraine, Lithuania reiterates that the volume and speed of international support to Ukraine cannot be reduced. We cannot tire or shift attention – we must all do everything in our power to help accelerate Ukraine’s victory. Lithuania’s military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine will continue until Ukraine wins this war and rebuilds, said the Prime Minister.
Lithuania firmly supports Ukraine’s efforts to establish alternative routes for the exports of its grain and other goods, such as the EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes. Lithuania is ready to contribute to the transport of Ukrainian grain and other products to global markets through the Klaipėda Seaport. Lithuania increased the port’s export capacity, offered simplified transit procedures, and we hope that, in cooperation with the Ukrainian and Polish governments, we can turn the Baltic Sea Corridor into another important route for Ukrainian grain to global markets, the Lithuanian Prime Minister added.
And yet, the only sustainable solution for both global food security and a sustainable and just peace in Europe lies in Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s total defeat in this unjustifiable and unprovoked war, underlined Ingrida Šimonytė.
The text of the Joint Statement of the Grain from Ukraine Summit in Lithuanian and English.
