Russia pulled out of a wartime grain deal with Ukraine on Monday. Now, she warns against any shipments without “security guarantees”.
A day after withdrawing from the wartime grain deal and renewing global concerns about food security, the Kremlin warned that shipping grain from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could be risky in the absence of Russian security guarantees, alleging that Ukraine uses the waters for military activities. .
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov issued the warning on Tuesday amid suggestions that Turkey might intervene to protect Ukrainian grain shipments.
Russia and Ukraine signed the Black Sea Grains Agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July to ensure that Ukrainian ships could transport grain from its Black Sea ports of Yuzhny, Odessa and Chornomorsk to the Bosphorus, without being attacked.
With it came a separate agreement to facilitate shipments of Russian food and fertilizer, but Moscow has long complained that parts of the deal related to those exports were not being implemented.
As Russia withdrew on Monday, officials said their repeated demands to boost Russian grain and fertilizer exports through the deal had not been met.
In a statement on Telegram, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow’s termination of the deal also meant “withdrawal of navigational safety guarantees, curtailment of the humanitarian sea corridor, and temporary restoration of order in a dangerous area in the northwest of the Black Sea.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement, “Even without the Russian Federation, everything must be done so that we can use this Black Sea corridor.”
“We are not afraid. We were approached by companies that own ships. They said they are ready, if Ukraine and Turkey are ready to continue, then everyone is ready to continue supplying grain.
The Ukrainian leader is in talks with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss restoring grain supplies via the Black Sea routes.
World leaders condemned Moscow for reneging on the agreement, saying the move threatened global food security and would lead to higher prices.
“Hundreds of millions of people face hunger, and consumers face a global cost-of-living crisis,” Guterres said in a statement.
But Peskov dismissed such criticism and highlighted that Moscow would supply grain to poor countries in need.
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