Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has warned that famine caused by grain and food shortages due to the invasion of Ukraine could cause more deaths than the war itself.
He said he met with his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksandr Kubrakov in Germany last week to discuss how help could be provided to help grain leave.
He told Sky News: “I think it’s absolutely essential that we do, unless there could be a lot of hunger and indeed even famine that could dwarf the numbers involved in the war itself.”
Asked if military ships will be sent, Mr Shapps said: “I can’t go into specific detail, there are a lot of complexities to this including mined waters near Odesa port, clearly the situation with Russia and (Vladimir) Putin and their approach to this could make that very difficult.
“But it’s hard to overestimate how much Ukraine was and is the breadbasket of the world.”
