Russia says Western investment in Ukraine’s farms is a plot to take over the world

MOSCOW — Ukraine has long tried to sell itself to Europe as the once-and-future breadbasket of the continent, promising that Western investment is the key to making its under-exploited black earth bloom.

But official Russia would like you to know that all this agricultural development talk is really just a secret plot to help companies like Monsanto take over the world.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev told a meeting of his counterparts in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Tuesday that the West plans to grown “genetically modified crops” in Ukraine. And it’s a fool’s errand too, he suggested, because, “to put it mildly, Europe will not approve of such products.”

“It is becoming increasingly obvious that Western countries are not planning to restore the Ukrainian economy. Rather, they are going to turn Ukraine into an agrarian country,” Patrushev said, in comments carried by Russian news service Interfax.