Leader of Russia's Chechnya says he is ready to ensure wheat supplies to Syria if necessary

MOSCOW - Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said he is ready to step in if necessary and ensure that Syria gets the wheat it needs in what he said was the unlikely event that Russian wheat supplies to the country were disrupted.

Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters on Friday that Russian wheat supplies to Syria had been suspended due to uncertainty about the new government there after two vessels carrying Russian wheat for Syria failed to reach their destinations.

In a message posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Kadyrov said that the two rerouted vessels had been carrying "commercial" wheat and that Russian state-backed supplies to Syria had not been affected.

"Even if for some impossible and incredible reasons this does happen, I, as the head of the Chechen Republic, am ready to take responsibility and ensure the necessary amount of wheat for Syria," Kadyrov wrote.

Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, supplies wheat to Syria through complex financial and logistical arrangements, circumventing Western sanctions imposed on both countries. It is not clear what share of wheat is supplied by the state.

Kadyrov did not specify how he would organise and finance wheat supplies to Syria if he had to step in and where the wheat would come from.

But he said he could act, if necessary, via a charitable fund named after his late father which helped to rebuild some mosques and provided humanitarian aid to Syria during ousted President Bashar al-Assad's rule.

Russian analysts estimate Russia's exports to Syria at 300,000 tons so far this season, with the country ranking 24th among buyers of Russian wheat. They estimate Syria's total wheat imports at about 2 million tons.

Russia is the main supplier of wheat to Syria, and disruption in supplies could cause hunger in the country of over 23 million people. Sources told Reuters the two sides are in contact regarding supplies.

(Reporting by Olga Popova and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Andrew Osborn)