Putin channels inner Stalin with horror plot to 'starve 40m Ukrainians to death'

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already suggested that the Russian President sees himself as a “new Stalin”. Now, as his invasion of Ukraine is stalling, Mr Putin is said to be trying to starve the nation into submission. Russian troops have destroyed farmland, blown up agricultural equipment and planted landmines in the rich soil where crops should grow.

Not only that, but but they have decimated supply routes into Ukraine.

Ports are under Russian control and in Mariupol — where 170,000 people are still struggling to survive — food has virtually run out as aid workers fail to make it through.

The EU’s Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski said: “The only interpretation is that [the Russians] want to create hunger and to use this method as a method of aggression.

“It is similar method that was used in 1930s by Soviet regime against Ukrainian people.”

90 years ago, Stalin’s Soviet regime inflicted a devastating famine on Ukraine, killing 3.9 million people in what became known as the Holodomor.

April is usually when Ukrainian farmers start sowing the maize and sunflowers they will harvest in the summer.

But that is looking to be increasingly difficult given the restraints, coupled with shortages of fertiliser and workers who have joined the army.

Roman Leshchenko, Ukraine’s former agriculture minister, asked the EU “urgently” for billions of seeds — to grow cabbages, beetroot, carrots and tomatoes.

EU officials are said to be scrambling to help out and have already pledged to finance Polish efforts to supply 50,000 tonnes of diesel per week to Ukrainian farmers.

READ MORE: EU sending Putin £673m a DAY as Russia’s economy ‘returns to pre-war’ level

The World Food Programme (WFP) has delivered humanitarian food supplies to the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy and Dnipro.

WFP’s Executive Director David Beasley said Ukraine is “a country that’s gone from breadbasket to breadlines”.

He added: “Reaching the 40 million people inside Ukraine is our gravest concern. If we don’t reach them, obviously they starve to death

But there is still hope.

Reports indicate that the Russian army has pulled back from its abortive advance on Kyiv to the southeast.

It is allowing the Ukrainian army to gather and fight back strongly – and its farming sector could do the same.

Spring sowing has begun in 20 regions of Ukraine and the county has built up strategic food stocks including a year’s worth of wheat for making bread.

Because it exports so much food, Ukraine produces huge amounts more than it consumes domestically.

The main problem it faces is how the farming sector will survive long-term, as it will take yers to recover from the invasion.

source: express.co.uk