Two senior United Nations leaders will discuss in Moscow next week the future of the agreement on Ukrainian grains, from which Russia withdrew in July, Russian diplomacy announced on Friday.
These are the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rebeca Grynspan, said Deputy Foreign Minister Serguei Vershinin.
Griffiths and Grynspan are scheduled to arrive in Moscow on Monday, Vershinin said, quoted by Spanish agency EFE.
“We will hold consultations on food security and once again announce our position and assessment on the entire range of issues,” said Vershinin, one of 11 deputies to Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Vershinin said that despite Moscow withdrawing from the agreement, a three-year memorandum between Russia and the UN remains in force.
The memorandum stipulated that Russia could export agricultural products and fertilizers once logistical and banking obstacles associated with Western sanctions were removed.
Russia complained that this part had never been fulfilled and announced the suspension of participation in the grain agreement on July 17.
The agreements signed in Istanbul in July 2022 allowed the export of more than 32 million tons of food products from three Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea to 45 countries on three continents, according to the UN.
The grains were blocked due to the war that Russia started against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Since quitting the deal, Russia has attacked river ports and grain infrastructure in Ukraine, blaming the country for worsening food insecurity around the world.
The agreement is considered crucial for global food supply and security as Ukraine and Russia are two of the largest agricultural producers.
According to the British magazine The Economist, before the war they together supplied 28% of the world’s wheat, 29% of its barley, 15% of its corn and 75% of its sunflower oil.
To renege on the agreement, Moscow is demanding that the agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank be reconnected to the SWIFT system, the international network that allows interbank financial transactions, from which the bank was suspended under the sanctions.
It also demands the lifting of sanctions on spare parts for agricultural machinery, the unblocking of transport logistics and insurance, and the resumption of operation of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia gas pipeline, which exploded on June 5.
Lavrov said in late September that Russia will return to the grain deal on the day Russian conditions are met.
“We will achieve results so that our agricultural products and fertilizers are not subject to sanctions, and then we can talk about resuming some other parts of the agreements in Istanbul,” Vershinin said today.
Kyiv’s Western allies have imposed successive packages of economic sanctions on Moscow to try to reduce Russia’s ability to finance the war effort against Ukraine.
They have also supplied weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian forces.
Source: DN
