Scott Reynolds Nelson

After invasion, famine

Russia is blockading Ukrainian grain ships. North Africa and the Middle East will suffer

A Ukrainian wheat field (Getty)

Geopolitical pundits fool themselves by thinking that President Putin wants simply to return to challenge Nato or return to the Soviet Union. This is a much older story. Russian imperialists have had utopian designs on the Ukrainian plains since at least the days of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible.

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Written by
Scott Reynolds Nelson
Scott Reynolds Nelson is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of History at the University of Georgia. His latest book, Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World, was published by Basic Books in February 2022.

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