UN official hopes for breakthrough on Russian food, fertilizer shipments

A top U.N. official said Thursday that he hopes for a breakthrough soon after months of efforts to ensure that Russian food and fertilizer can be shipped to developing countries struggling with high prices.

A day after Moscow agreed to renew a wartime accord allowing Ukraine to export critical food supplies, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told The Associated Press (AP) that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently met with insurance titan Lloyds to help iron out coverage for shipments of Russian agricultural products.

Moscow has repeatedly complained that Western sanctions, which don’t target its food or fertilizer, have hindered insurance, financing and logistics for its exports. However, analysts and trade data say Russia is shipping huge amounts of wheat through other ports.

U.N. deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq declined to confirm whether Guterres had met with Lloyds. The insurer did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

“We are engaged with the private sector at all levels, including that of the secretarygeneral, to ensure” the agreement to facilitate Russia’s food and fertilizer exports is “fully implemented,” Haq said.

The U.N. and Türkiye brokered two separate agreements last summer with the warring sides: one that has allowed more than 30 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain to get to world markets through a demilitarized sea corridor and another to ease Russia’s exports.

Griffiths said Russia — despite its vocal reservations — agreed on Wednesday to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative because Moscow recognized it’s important to help underpin global food security and keep prices of grain, fertilizer and other farm products down.

Countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia rely on affordable wheat, barley, vegetable oil and other food that comes from the Black Sea region, dubbed the “breadbasket of the world.” Griffiths, the top U.N. envoy on the grain deal, pointed to “a whole range of elements” that led to Russia’s decision. Those include the views of developing countries that overwhelmingly support the deal, including China and India, as well as the role of Turkey, which helped broker the agreements, he said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is in a tough reelection contest and has cast himself as a neutral intermediary, announced Russia’s extension of the deal a day earlier.