In a recent comment on the global uncertainty and looming food crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris dubbed Russia’s President Vladimir Putin “another Hitler in the making.”
The billionaire businessman made this remark while expressing his thoughts on Putin and his country’s invasion of Ukraine in a recent interview with the U.S. cable business news channel, CNBC.
This is the latest comment on the Ukraine crisis by the Egyptian billionaire, who has proposed a number of policies that the Egyptian government should implement to offset rising oil and wheat prices caused by supply concerns and production disruptions arising from the Russia-Ukraine war.
The war has already ran for four months, killing thousands of civilians and displacing millions of Ukrainians. Several Ukrainian cities have been destroyed completely.
When asked if he expects civil unrest to ensue in Egypt as a result of food shortages resulting from the war, Sawiris, chairman and CEO of Orascom Investment Holding, said no, arguing that Egyptians will recognize that the crisis is caused by Putin as opposed to their own government.
“I don’t think so,” Sawiris said Wednesday. “Because people understand that this crisis is not of our own making.” I mean, it’s the making of a crazy man that woke up one day and decided to invade a peaceful country with no warning.”
In response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s remarks that Putin must not be humiliated and that the door to improved diplomatic relations should be kept open, Sawiris said: “No one should care about his feelings, and we should be winning this war, because it’s another Hitler in the making.”
Food crisis raises fears of civil unrest in Egypt
Russia’s military operation has elicited strong reactions and harsh comments from billionaires, industry titans, policymakers, and politicians from all walks of life.
The impact of the onslaught of economic sanctions on Russia, combined with the direct disruption of the war, has weighed heavily on businesses, living standards, and international affairs.
Russian forces now occupy approximately 20 percent of Ukraine, as bloody fighting rages in the eastern Donbas region, which the Kremlin has described as an “unconditional priority.”
With 80 percent of Egypt’s wheat imports traditionally coming from Ukraine and Russia, the Egyptian government has taken precautionary measures to prevent an uprising as the current economic crisis pushes up food prices in a country that has lived for years with austerity measures and a soaring cost of living.
Egypt recently requested a third IMF loan in six years, despite the fact that one-third of the population lives in poverty. According to a risk consultancy report, rising fuel and food prices are set to stoke civil unrest in developing middle-income countries, with Egypt and Tunisia among the hardest hit.
The report adds to what international organizations, including the World Bank, have stated — rising food prices could spark social unrest throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Rising food prices were a major factor in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
