Senegal’s President Macky Sall has said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had expressed readiness to enable the export of Ukrainian grain to ease Africa’s share of the global food crisis.

President Sally who is currently in Russia for bilateral talks announced in a tweet early on Thursday that Putin is ready to release grains and fertilizers stuck at Ukrainian ports.

“The president #Putin expressed to us his readiness to facilitate the export of Ukrainian cereals,” Mr. Sally tweeted.

Sally also said in the tweet that Russia is ready to export it’s wheat and fertilizers.

The Senegalese president who is also the Chairperson of the African Union, is in Russia to hold talks with Putin on ways to address the current global crisis that’s hitting Africa hard.

The Reuters news agency quotes Macky Sall as telling the Kremlin, “I have come to see you, to ask you to be aware that our countries, even far from the theatre (of war), are the victims of this economic crisis.”

African countries are acutely affected by the growing crisis, which has sent prices of grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertilizer soaring.

Several African countries including Uganda and Ghana have reportedly taken stringent measures to ban or restrict grain exports in what observers term as a global food protectionism.

On Thursday, the South Sudan government raised an alarm that the neighboring Uganda has shutdown a major export market.

The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs urged to the ‘friends of South Sudan’ to keep exporting food commodities to the country.