Narrative Warfare: Food Insecurity in the Russia-Ukraine War

May 23, 2024 | Mykhaylo Simanovskyy, Volodymyr Kulikov, Nicholas Pierce, and Evan Samsky
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Several academic papers, analytical reports, and policy briefs have examined the impact of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine on the global food market. They explain Russia’s strategy of using food as a weapon and the consequences for global food security. This memo focuses on the narrative warfare regarding food insecurity, analyzing how Ukraine and Russia frame their actions and policies concerning food security, especially toward dependent countries in the Global South.

Russia and Ukraine use food insecurity as leverage to achieve political goals, with some strategies overlapping between the two states. The Ukrainian version describes Russia as a neocolonial, revisionist empire and draws parallels with various historical incidents, such as Stalin’s policies that led to the Holodomor in the 1930s. For its part, the Russians present «the collective West» as an irresponsible actor guiding the Global South toward a food crisis through its support of Ukraine and sanctions against Russia. This narrative deprives Ukraine of its agency as a sovereign state, implying that Ukraine is being manipulated, thereby downplaying Ukraine’s importance in the global market and positioning Russia as a viable alternative.

Russia and Ukraine emphasize the issue of global food insecurity to advance their political objectives, inviting a comparison of their narratives. However, this comparison does not imply equivalence in their actions or positions, given that Russia is the aggressor in the conflict and Ukraine is in a defensive posture. Many of Russia’s official statements attributing the causes of rising global food insecurity have also been debunked; Russia’s rhetoric on this topic is demonstrably false.