This is CBSI in the world. I'm John Batsy with Brad Bowman of the Foundation for the

Defensive Democracies. We move from the battlefield, from the fog of war to the fog of diplomacy,

United Nations Moscow, a deal allowing the safe black sea export of Ukraine's grain for

the past year expired. After Russia quit and warned it could not guarantee the safety

of ships and a move, the United Nations said would quote, strike a blow to people in need everywhere.

Brad, this is the food weapon. And it's been talked about since the beginning of this war,

apparently Russia has decided to play it again. They've teased this whole thing.

They're demanding to improve their exports of grain and fertilizer. Who knows what that means?

Is this in response to the weakness on the battlefield? Are they looking to draw the attention of

the world to what it will cost if this war continues? I'm trying to interpret where they gain on this.

You know, John, it's a great question. And what I have is informed conjecture at this point,

but what I, you know, if you want to, you want to know the future, look at the past and looking at

the insid, the what's transpired in Ukraine since February 24th of last year tells me obviously

that Vladimir Putin does not let moral considerations get in the way of what he's doing.

And to me, this is, this is about as low as it gets. He's essentially, I think, you know,

sometimes there is fog of war, as you say, sometimes I think we just need to call spade a spade.

And what Vladimir Putin is doing here is he's depriving hungry people of food to advance his war

of aggression in Ukraine. And to me, that's the bottom line. Because what was this deal at root?

If you boil it all down and cut out the crud, what this was saying, hey, we Russia are not going to

attack grain shipments going to hungry people in Africa. That's essentially what they agreed to.

Right? Obviously that helps you create an economy. But most importantly, it helps hungry people

feed themselves and their families. Now what we have a Kremlin saying is, you know what? We're not

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