Kyiv opens Grain from Ukraine scheme to get food to Africa’s poorest countries

Programme to subsidise exports of grain to poor and hungry countries launched on anniversary of Ukraine's Holodomor famine

Up to 60 Ukrainian grain ships can be sent by the middle of next year to some of the world's poorest countries in Africa, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, said in a statement released to the Guardian.

In a move that challenges the Russian narrative that the west's response to its war on Ukraine has aggravated pre-existing food shortages in Africa, Zelenskiy said ships moving out of the Ukrainian port of Odesa can reach humanitarian hotspots such as Sudan, Yemen and Somalia, but only so long as international funding comes forward to subsidise the grain.