The amount of grain destroyed in Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports was enough to feed 270,000 people for a year, according to UK delegate Barbara Woodward. 

Addressing the UN Security Council, she said Russia has destroyed dock equipment, making it more difficult to load grain onto ships - and has even "burnt food at the dockside and made threats to murder civilian sailors". 

"There is no possible justification for these punitive acts," Ms Woodward added. 

She branded Russia's "so-called" reasons for exiting the Black Sea grain deal as "nonsense" and said Ukraine had made no such demands. 

"It wants nothing more than to make its food available to the world," Ms Woodward told the council in New York. 

Up to 24 million tonnes of Ukrainian food may now not reach world markets as a result of actions by Moscow, she said, adding that its actions had "already raised prices, with immediate impact on the world's poorest and hungriest people". 

"Russia's latest demands are tantamount to holding the world's starving hostage," she added, saying: "Food is not a weapon." 

(Source: Sky News)