European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell did not ask Russia to lower the price of grain for the sake of “fair competition”. In public speeches, the diplomat has said Russia is causing a global food crisis and that Moscow’s actions would lead to a global rise in prices.
Against the backdrop of Russia withdrawing from the Black Sea Grain Deal, the agreement for Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea, some Telegram channels and social media users are claiming that the European Union was allegedly asking Russia to lower the price of grain for “fair competition”. Such a request was supposedly made by the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
“Due to an increase in the cost of transportation, Ukrainian grain may lose at auction to Russian grain. We need fair competition, so we ask Moscow to lower prices for its grain supplies. This will be fair to all market participants,” – this quote is attributed to Josep Borrell.
Josep Borrell however, never said any such thing.None of the fake stories or social media posts who disseminated this fake mentioned where and when exactly the EU top diplomat supposedly said this.
Almost all the news stories, in which Borrell mentioned the price of grain, are dated July 20. It was on this day that Borrell participated in an EU Foreign Ministers meeting and he may have said something to that effect there.
However, after reviewing the transcript of Borrell’s press statements before and after this meeting on the EU’s official website, we did not find the quote attributed to him there either. Discussing grain prices, the diplomat only blamed Russia.
“Contrary to what Russia is claiming, it is making good profits from exports of its grain and fertilizers, and will make even more profits now when the prices will rise again after Russia killed the [Black Sea Grain] Deal, and destroys the stockpiles in the Ukrainian harbors. ,” — Borrel said.
The diplomat then added that the international community must respond strongly to “this deliberate attempt by Putin to starve the world’s population in order to obtain additional money or wage this illegal war.” There are no requests to Russia to reduce prices for “fair competition” in his remarks.
Apparently, the false quote spread by Russian propagandists was taken from the “here is my Yandex wallet” Telegram channel, which published it on the eve of mass distribution. The channel is described as a parody and satire account. Despite this, Russian social media users and Telegram news channels passed her off the fake Borrell quote as real.
StopFake debunked another fake Russian grain story claiming that grain silos destroyed by Russian strikes allegedly housed Ukrainian military equipment instead of grain.
