Context: The United Nations (UN) stated that if the conflict in the Middle East continues until summer, the number of people experiencing hunger worldwide could increase by 45 million, affecting the entire globe. The rising prices of fuel, fertilizers, and transportation are already affecting food costs. Europeans have already felt the effects of rising fuel prices, and experts are warning that oil, flour, bread, pasta, and potato chips could also become more expensive. Although Belarus is not directly dependent on energy resources from the Middle East, Aleksandr Lukashenko acknowledged that rising prices in that region would affect Belarus through global inflation and price increases.
While discussing food security on Belarusian Radio’s First National Channel, Mikita Bialenchanka, the director of the Center for International Studies at the BSU Faculty of International Relations, said that Belarus essentially feeds France with snails.
“The French love snails. They do love them, but they don’t actually produce many snails in France. <...> They mostly buy snails from the Republic of Belarus. So the Republic of Belarus supplies snails to France. <...> Leaving companies aside, Serbia is another country that actively supplies snails,” said Mikita Bialenchanka on the Ekspertnyi klub show on March 17, 2026.
France remains one of the world’s largest importers of snails, buying nearly all of them from abroad. However, the claim that most of these imports come from Belarus is not true.
France imports approximately 2,000 tons of snails from various countries each year. Belarus accounts for only about 3% of that total. Serbia, which the broadcast named as another active supplier, is indeed more prominent, with its share of French snail imports being about 9%. This is approximately three times the size of Belarus’s.
Meanwhile, France’s main suppliers of snails are neither Belarus nor Serbia. Lithuania, Turkey, and Romania are currently leading the pack. Together, these three countries account for about two-thirds of all French imports.
Thus, the established fact that Belarus supplies snails was turned into a highly exaggerated statement about their allegedly key role in the French market on Belarusian radio. Although Belarus exports snails to France, it cannot be said that it provides the majority of the supply.