International | Bread-blocking bandits

How men with guns aggravate global hunger

Vladimir Putin’s attempt at grain blackmail highlights a wider problem

|Kyiv, Mogadishu and Rio de Janeiro

At first glance, Vladimir Putin has little in common with an Ethiopian foot-soldier. One man has palaces and nuclear weapons, the other a shack and an old Kalashnikov. Yet both illustrate a global problem: that food supplies are often disrupted by men with guns.

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Bread-blocking bandits”

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