Disruption of Ukrainian grain exports is causing a global humanitarian food crisis. Measures need to be taken to create a humanitarian task force to ensure safe passage for export of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world through the Black Sea and the Turkish Straits, argues Maximiliaan van Lange in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. Russia's blackmailing of the world with global hunger and food shortages among the world's poorest people must also be severely condemned by the international community. The current circumstances, in many ways, resemble the Holodomor, the Stalin-created famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, that killed millions. The fact that Moscow is using grain as a weapon again in the twenty-first century is despicable and abhorrent. Global cooperation is therefore necessary to resolve this crisis, beginning with an internationally agreed humanitarian escort mission in the Black Sea, otherwise the consequences will be unforeseen.

One hundred days ago, on 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to overthrow the country's democratic government and install a puppet regime. This objective failed, but the war goes on, especially in the Donbass region where heavy fighting is taking place. Commonspace.eu interviewed Hanna Hopko, a Ukrainian politician and activist, who previously served as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament and is today at the forefront of several important humanitarian initiatives. Hopko  speaks about Ukraine's frustration with Europe's long standing failure to appreciate Ukraine properly. She speaks about the heroism of young Ukrainians who are fighting off current Russian aggression, and recalls the loss of some of her own friends who have died in battle or have been imprisoned. Hopko however remains optimistic about the future, referring to the Ukraine Recovery Plan that is already being prepared. She speaks about the country's hopes to be granted EU candidate status later this month: "Ukraine will not except any plan B. Only candidate status.  Our aspiration to apply to EU membership is a result of the long fight of Ukrainians for the right to be part of a free European family. It is based on our achievements in transformations of the country despite Russian continues efforts to break us." Read the interview in full.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Bahrain and Saudi Arabia this week as part of efforts to consolidate relations with the region, despite the international outcry over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The visit comes amid finding in a poll by YOUGOV that show that the Arab street is largely indifferent to the events in Ukraine. Faisal Abbas, the Editor in Chief of Arab News which commissioned the poll, in an article on 30 May, said that "most strikingly, perhaps, the findings lay bare the extent of the distrust of the West across all 14 of the countries covered in the survey. Almost a quarter of the 7,835 people surveyed (24 percent) pointed the finger of blame for the conflict squarely at NATO, while more than one in ten (13 percent) said US President Joe Biden was responsible. Only 16 percent blamed Russia." Abbas says that "this can be attributed in part to Russia’s massive investment in its own news channels in Arabic, and to a massive online outreach effort. But underpinning the widespread Arab skepticism on this issue is not so much the success of Russian propaganda, but rather the steady ebbing away of trust in the West over the past two decades."

The conclusions of the report “The South Caucasus from War to Peace: 30 measures between now and 2030”, recently published by the Joint Armenian-Azerbaijani Working group on Confidence-Building Measures in support of lasting peace in the South Caucasus (JOLIG), were presented in Yerevan on Monday, 30 May to an audience of diplomats, officials and civil society representatives. Armenian members of the Joint Liaison Group: Stepan Grigoryan, Benyamin Poghosyan and Johnny Melikyan, spoke about the process of dialogue with Azerbaijani counterparts in the preparation of the report, and highlighted the report’s conclusions, including thirty recommendations to help the process of building trust and confidence between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Addressing the event, the Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, congratulated the joint Liaison Group for its successful work. She said the report was important and timely and  offered many useful ideas that could be implemented in the short, medium and long term in support of peace in the South Caucasus.

Recently, the Government of Kosovo submitted a formal application to join the Council of Europe as a full member. The international community remains divided on the issue of Kosovo's international recognition. Yet in the few years since its independence Kosovo has made great strides forward, and today has one of the most dynamic economies in the Western Balkans, a vibrant cultural life, and a solid track record on human rights and the fight against corruption. commonspace.eu interviewed the Ambassador of Kosovo to the Netherlands, Dren Doli, about the current state of play in relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and on the thorny issue of whether the recognition of Kosovo has emboldened secessionist movements elsewhere. Ambassador Doli said that "the tendency to use Kosovo as a model for other cases is a strategy to generalise the rules that guide the creation of states and inflict confusion, deflect the truth, and deny the significance of objective arguments that differentiate Kosovo from other cases". Doli told commonspace.eu that "Kosovo is one of the rare examples of successful democratic state-building supported by western democracies". Ambassador Doli said that the government of Kosovo is committed to further develop and improve its relations with Serbia and welcomes any initiative  by the EU and the US in this direction.