DETROIT (WXYZ) — Poland’s agriculture minister said on Monday that Ukraine’s grain exports could be routed through Poland as long as Russia's war prevents them from departing Black Sea ports.
Henryk Kowalczyk, the agriculture minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke in Warsaw alongside U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Ukraine’s agriculture secretary and the European Union’s commission for agriculture, who is Polish.
Ukraine is a bread basket whose exports to world markets have been disrupted, threatening to exacerbate food shortages, hunger and inflation across the world.
Vilsack denounced Russia’s theft of Ukraine’s grain and its use of hunger as a tool of war. He said the U.S. would do what it could to prevent Russia from profiting from the theft.
Kowalczyk said that Poland’s ports on the Baltic Sea are prepared to be put to use to transport Ukraine’s grain abroad.
