Moscow will revive the stalled Black Sea Grain Initiative if the West removes hurdles to Russian agricultural exports, according to a top Russian diplomat.
Tensions in the Black Sea region grow as Russia continues to target Ukrainian seaports while fending off waves of attack drones in the Russia-held Crimean Peninsula.
“Western countries must focus on ensuring that Russian grain and fertilizers get to countries in need without hindrance,” Dmitry Polyansky, Moscow’s deputy envoy to the U.N., told the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 3.
However, he noted that Western states don’t appear to “have any plans to do this.”
Brokered last year by the U.N. and Turkey, the initiative had allowed Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea despite ongoing hostilities with Russia.
Russia halted its participation in the agreement on July 17, saying key parts of the deal weren’t being fulfilled.
Since it took effect last summer, the deal had allowed Ukraine to export more than 30 million tons of grain from ports on the Black Sea.
But according to Moscow, the second part of the deal—in the form of a Russia–U.N. memorandum—was never honored by Western states or the world body itself.
The memorandum calls for the elimination of barriers to Russian grain and fertilizer exports, as well as the resumption of Russian ammonia exports through Ukrainian territory.
The memorandum also calls for the reconnection of Russia’s state-run agricultural bank to the international SWIFT payment system.
“If all the issues we have identified are eliminated, and the Russia–U.N. memorandum is implemented, we can return to the Black Sea initiative,” Mr. Polyansky said.
‘Weaponizing’ Food
Recently, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. envoy to the U.N., said if Russia wants its agricultural produce to reach global markets, “they’re going to have to return to this deal.”“We have seen indications that they might be interested in returning to discussions,” Ms. Thomas-Greenfield told reporters on Aug. 1.
“We’ll wait and see whether that actually happens.”
Two days later, Sergey Vershinin, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said the deal might be revived “in a new form” if the West takes “concrete steps” to meet Moscow’s conditions.
Western officials accuse Moscow of using food shipments as a “weapon of war.” They frequently claim that Russia’s exit from the grain deal will deprive poorer countries of crucial grain supplies.
On July 27, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Russia’s exit from the grain deal would “exacerbate hunger in some of the hardest-hit areas of the world, including Africa.”
The U.S. State Department has previously stated that roughly 65 percent of Ukrainian grain exported under the deal had gone to the world’s “most vulnerable countries.”
But Russian officials dispute that assertion, saying the grain deal ultimately failed to achieve its objective—namely, ensuring food security for low-income nations.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, less than 5 percent of Ukrainian grain reached low-income countries under the deal, with most going to wealthy European states.
The Epoch Times couldn’t independently verify the assertion.
Free Grain for Africa
At a landmark Russia–Africa summit held last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled plans to provide several African states with free Russian grain.Within the next three or four months, he said Russia “will provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea with between 25,000 and 50,000 tons of free grain each.”
Held in St. Petersburg, the summit was attended by a number of African heads of state.
“Western countries obstruct supplies of our grain and fertilizers,” Mr. Putin said at the event, “while hypocritically blaming us for the current world food crisis.”
In a joint declaration, African leaders who attended the summit called for the removal of “obstacles to Russian grain and fertilizer exports,” thereby allowing the Black Sea grain deal to resume.
They also urged the U.N. to take “necessary action to release 200,000 tons of Russian fertilizer blocked in EU seaports for immediate and free delivery to African countries.”
Black Sea Tensions
Since Russia withdrew from the grain deal last month, tensions in and around the Black Sea have ramped up dramatically.On July 20, the Russian Defense Ministry declared that all maritime vessels en route to Ukrainian seaports would henceforth be deemed “potentially hostile.”
Countries whose flags are affixed to such vessels would be viewed as “parties to the conflict on the Ukrainian side,” the ministry stated.
Russia has also continued to carry out intermittent strikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure, especially in the Black Sea port of Odesa.
It has recently expanded the scope of these strikes to include Ukrainian port infrastructure along the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea.
On Aug. 2, Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said Russian strikes on the Danube port of Izmail, Ukraine, had damaged 40,000 tons of grain intended for export.
Mr. Kubrakov asserted in a post on social media that port infrastructure along the river had been “devastated.”
However, no casualties were reported in the immediate wake of the strikes.
Over the same period, Russia has fended off multiple drone attacks in the Black Sea region of Crimea, which Moscow effectively annexed in 2014.
On Aug. 4, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had repelled a Ukrainian attack on Crimea involving 13 aerial drones. It was the third such attack—one of which set an ammunition depot ablaze—in as many weeks.
On the same day, the ministry claimed that two Russian warships had foiled a separate attack by waterborne drones on Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. According to sources quoted in the Western press, at least one Russian naval vessel was damaged in the attack.
