Russian President Vladimir Putin’s blockade of Ukrainian wheat and not India’s export restrictions is the cause of hunger in the world, said German Ambassador to India Walter J Lindner.

There would be more sanctions against Russia if its aggression continued and Germany was trying to bring down its dependence on Russian gas to zero by next year, Lindner said at a media interaction organised by the Indian Women’s Press Corps on Friday. 

G7 Agriculture Ministers, led by Germany’s Cem Ozdemir, had criticised India’s decision to ban wheat exports earlier this month. But New Delhi’s defence of the move pointing out that its exports accounted for less than 1 per cent of world trade in wheat and heatwave across the country had affected output seems to have softened the bloc’s approach.

India has been anyway exporting very little and had  its own problems such as heat wave affecting wheat crop, Lindner said, indicating that the matter may not gain much traction at the G-7 meeting next month.

“It is because of Putin’s aggressive war and his decision to blockade all this (Ukrainian wheat) that we have hunger and problems of feeding people around the globe.,” the German Ambassador said, adding that in Ukraine there are more than 5 million tonnes wheat at the moment in the warehouses. “They can’t transport it to Africa and other countries because Russia is blocking Mariupol and other harbours in the Black Sea,” he added.

Ukraine crisis

Putin’s war against Ukraine will be high on the G-7 agenda and there will be more sanctions if the aggression continued, Lindner said. “Sanction is not our choice. We had to impose sanctions because of such mad action by Putin. Let us see what happens in the next weeks. If he goes on like this there has to be more sanctions. We have to do this as world community,” he said.

The Ambassador pointed out that there was a lot of dependence in Europe on Russian gas, with some countries depending fully on it, some lesser. Germany’s dependence was about 50-60 per cent and it hoped to do away with it by next year. “We want to reduce dependence on coal to zero by August this year. Gas is difficult to substitute because of technical reasons but we hope by next year we will bring it down to zero. We have learnt our lesson now,” he said.

The Ukraine crisis had lent urgency to the India-EU Free Trade Agreement talks as there was a realisation on both sides that new partners were needed to keep trade flowing, Lindner said.