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Kiev exports grain to Europe in exchange for weapons - Russian Defense Ministry

Mizintsev stressed that "this is happening amid an acute shortage of foodstuffs for their own population, as well as the lack of crops in most Ukrainian regions for the spring sowing campaign"

MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Ukrainian authorities have shipped 20 million tonnes of grain crops and farm animals to Romania amid food shortages, receiving foreign weapons and ammunition in return, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, told reporters on Saturday.

"According to available intelligence, the Ukrainian authorities have arranged daily mass exports of grain, corn, oil crops and farm animals by road and rail as well as on barges from the port of Izmail along the Danube to Romania. As of today, about 20 million tonnes have been exported so far," said Mizintsev, who heads the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response in Ukraine.

"In exchange for these agricultural products, foreign weapons and ammunition arrive in Ukraine along the return route," he added.

Mizintsev stressed that "this is happening amid an acute shortage of foodstuffs for their own population, as well as the lack of crops in most Ukrainian regions for the spring sowing campaign.".