JOHANNESBURG — Russian President Vladimir Putin took multiple shots at the West on the opening day of an economic summit in South Africa, using a prerecorded speech that was aired on giant screens Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, to rail at what he called “illegitimate sanctions” on his country and threaten to cut off Ukraine’s grain exports permanently.
Putin, the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant related to the war in Ukraine, did not travel to Johannesburg for the summit of the Brics group of emerging economies. Instead, he plans to participate remotely in the three-day meeting of the bloc that encompasses Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics).
His 17-minute speech recorded in advance centered on the war in Ukraine and Russia’s relationship with the West — even though South African officials had said East-West frictions should not dominate the first in-person Brics summit since before the Covid-19 pandemic and hoped to guide the conversation away from the deteriorating geopolitical climate.
Sitting at a desk with a white notebook in front of him and a Russian flag behind, Putin said a wartime deal to facilitate Ukrainian grain shipments that is critical for the world’s food supply would not resume until his conditions — the easing of restrictions on Russian food and agricultural products — are met.
The West’s attempts to punish and isolate Russia financially for sending troops into Ukraine are an “illegitimate sanctions practice and illegal freezing of assets of sovereign states, which essentially amounts to them trampling upon all the basic norms and rules of free trade,” the Russian leader asserted.
Moscow pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July and stepped up drone and missile attacks on the city of Odesa in southern Ukraine, home to one of the ports the controlled passage agreement covered. / AP