The Ukrainian government has assured Mozambique that it is willing to provide the country with wheat. The guarantee was given in Maputo on 19 August by the Ukrainian ambassador, Liubov Abravitova, after she was received by Helder Injojo, the first deputy chairperson of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

Ukraine is a major exporter, not only of grain (particularly wheat) but also of sunflower oil.

"The opportunities were always there", said Abravitova, "but it was the Russian invasion of our country which proved to the world, to Africa and particularly to Mozambique how important Ukraine is for world food security".

The ambassador added that wheat imports were among the matters discussed in the recent phone conversation between President Filipe Nyusi and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

She said the meeting with Injojo also discussed establishing ties of cooperation between the Ukrainian and Mozambican parliaments. According to the spokesperson for the meeting, Oriel Chemane, she "expressed the interest of the Ukrainian parliament in setting up a Mozambique-Ukraine league of friendship and cooperation and bringing together delegations of the two parliaments for exchanging experiences and for parliamentary cooperation in various fields".

Injojo expressed his solidarity with Ukraine for the loss of life and destruction of infrastructures in the current conflict. He called on the two sides to reach a peaceful solution through dialogue. He noted that relations of friendship between Mozambique and Ukraine go back to the days of Mozambique's armed struggle for independence from Portuguese colonial rule when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, which assisted the Mozambican liberation movement.

Mozambique is dependent on imports for 90 per cent or more of the wheat consumed in the country. Attempts to boost local wheat production have not proved successful, and nothing more is heard nowadays of the proposal to make bread out of a mixture of wheat flour and cassava flour.