Russia is ready to provide aid, including food, to refugees expected to flee from Iraq in the event of war, Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu was quoted as saying on Wednesday. \"The Emergencies Ministry has everything necessary to react in time to developments in the refugee situation,\" Itar-Tass news agency quoted Shoigu as saying in the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod. He said Russia had held talks with Iran and with the world\'s largest food aid agency, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), on helping Iraqi refugees. He gave no details. Sixty percent of Iraq\'s 25 million people depend directly on the U.N. oil-for-food programme, which allows the country to export limited quantities of oil and use the proceeds to provide basic necessities. The programme was suspended on Monday after the U.N. ordered its international staff to leave Iraq. The Russian Grain Union, the industry lobby, told Reuters last month that Russia supplied Iraq with about half a million tonnes of wheat a year under the oil-for-food programme. But this could not be officially confirmed. (Reuters)