The White House criticized Russia on Thursday for jeopardizing the price of grain following its withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the Turkish-and U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain initiative have resulted in more than 32 million tons of grain being exported to rural markets.
"Russia's actions to take such a significant amount of food products off the world markets will exacerbate hunger in some of the hardest-hit areas of the world, including Africa," she said.
Earlier on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told African leaders he would gift them tens of thousands of tons of grain within months despite Western sanctions, which he said made it harder for Moscow to export its grain and fertilizers.
Speaking at a summit in St. Petersburg devoted to Russian-African ties, Putin said Russia was expecting a record grain harvest and was ready to replace Ukrainian grain exports to Africa on both a commercial and aid basis to honor what he said was Moscow's critical role in global food security.
"We will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25-50,000 tons of free grain each in the next three-four months," Putin told the summit, whose participants applauded.
"We will also provide free delivery of these products to consumers."
