Top Putin Adviser Warns of ‘Global Famine’ by the End of This Year

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech as he hosts Russia's medal-winning athletes of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and members of the country's Paralympic team at the Kremlin in Moscow, on April 26, 2022. Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images

A top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that a “global famine” may start by the end of 2022 because of grain shortages caused by the conflict in Ukraine.

“It is important that in the conditions, for example, of a global famine that will occur closer to autumn, by the end of this year all over the world, Russia should not suffer, but be fully provided with food,” Maxim Oreshkin, Putin’s adviser, told a forum in Moscow late last week, according to state-run media RT.