During a meeting in New York on Monday, UN chief António Guterres tried to convince Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to improve and even expand the deal. But the Kremlin doesn’t listen to that. “The conditions that we demanded when the deal was made were never met,” Peskov said. According to him, Russia itself also faces obstacles in the export of food products and fertilizers.
A first agreement dates back to July last year. In the early months of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia blocked Ukraine’s Black Sea ports for months, preventing grain and other agricultural products from leaving the country. This increased international fears about rapidly rising food prices, especially in the poorest countries. Under the mediation of the United Nations and Turkey, the grain blockade ended last summer, and in return the Russians demanded relaxed measures against its own agricultural sector.
The provisional last extension came in mid-March. Kiev then talked about a 120-day extension, but Russia claimed the agreement was only for 60 days.
According to the Kremlin spokesman, the impact of the deal on global food supply is limited. “We all know that the food crisis has other causes, and that it is not a direct result of the disappearance of Ukrainian grain.”