Farmer Marin Iliev poses for a photograph in his fields near the town of Saedinenie in central Bulgaria, April 20, 2023.
Nikolai Doychinov | AFP | Getty’s paintings
WASHINGTON — Russia has yet to come to a decision whether to increase the terms of a global deal that guarantees food security for tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and its decision could further exacerbate the consequences of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.
By all accounts, the July deal to reopen key ports, often known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, expires on May 18.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “there are still many open questions” a few potential extension to the deal.
“When the suitable decision is made, we are going to inform you, that is all I can say for now,” Peskov told reporters at a every day press briefing.
By the point Russian troops crossed Ukraine’s borders in February 2022, Kiev and Moscow accounted for nearly 1 / 4 of the world’s grain exports. These shipments were severely placed on hold for nearly six months until representatives from Ukraine, Russia, the UN and Turkey agreed to create a humanitarian sea corridor and reopen three Ukrainian ports.
A ship carrying wheat from Ukraine to Afghanistan after an inspection within the open sea across the Zeytinburnu district of Istanbul, Turkiye, January 24, 2023.
TUR Ministry of National Defense | Anadolu Agency | Getty’s paintings
Under the contract, greater than 950 vessels are carrying over 30.2 million tons of agricultural products left the war-exhausted Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny Pivdenny.
On Monday comments before the UN Security Council, Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, said that greater than 55% of this cargo had reached the world’s hungriest countries.
He added that the most recent evaluation by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations indicates that global grain prices have fallen by nearly 20% over the past yr, and international wheat prices have fallen to their lowest level since July 2021.
“This just isn’t a deal we agreed to”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addresses the media at a press conference on the United Nations (UN) headquarters, April 25, 2023 in Recent York.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images | News Getty’s paintings
Moscow maintains that the present deal is simply favorable to Kiev, since Russian fertilizer exports couldn’t travel through the ocean corridor in the identical way as Ukrainian grain.
Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov renewed his threats to walk away from the deal.
“It was not called the grain agreement, however the Black Sea Initiative, and within the text of the agreement it was stated that it concerns the expansion of grain and fertilizer export opportunities” Lavrov told reporters at a press conference on April 26.
“This just isn’t the deal we agreed to on July 22,” he said, adding that dozens of Russian cargo ships laden with around 200,000 tons of fertilizers were waiting in European ports.
The Kremlin subsequently calls for the resumption of exports of Russian ammonia via pipeline through Ukraine to the port of Odessa.
Lavrov also said that one among Moscow’s foremost demands is the return of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT banking system.
Moscow’s exclusion from SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, cut the country off from many of the world’s financial networks inside days of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
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