RUSSIA’S LAVROV BLAMES WEST FOR BLACK SEA DEAL IMPASSE
▶ Agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain and other produce is set to expire on May 18
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has blamed the West for an impasse over the extension of a Black Sea grain deal.
The pact has allowed the export of about 28 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea since last July, to help ease the global food crisis.
It was brokered by the UN and Turkey last year after war broke out between Russia and Ukraine and affected the critical exports of grain. The deal is set to expire on May 18.
Moscow has seen “practically no results” from the pact for its own grain and fertiliser exports, Mr Lavrov said at the UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.
Moscow has indicated that, unless its demands are met to remove obstacles to those exports, it will not agree to extend the Black Sea deal.
Mr Lavrov said the situation has not been resolved and has been “brought to a dead end by western colleagues”.
He confirmed UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the grain deal and said there would be a response in due course.
The UN chief’s letter outlines a “proposed way forward” aimed at the extension and expansion of the initiative, “taking into account positions recently expressed by the parties and the risks posed by global food insecurity”. A similar letter was sent to Ukraine and Turkey, the UN has said.
Last month, the deal was extended for a second time, but Moscow agreed to only 60 more days instead of the proposed 120 days. On April 13, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Moscow saw no possibility of extension unless “five systemic problems” were resolved.
These included the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the international Swift banking system, as well as the resumption of supplies of agricultural machinery, spare parts and services to Russia.
Moscow has also demanded that restrictions by the West on the insurance of Russian vessels carrying grain be lifted, along with the ban on their access to European ports.
It also wants the Tolyatti-Odesa pipeline that delivers Russian ammonia to a Ukrainian Black Sea port to be reopened.
Another Russian demand is the unblocking of foreign assets and accounts of Russian companies involved in the production and transport of food and fertilisers.
The likelihood that Moscow will refuse to extend the grain deal after May 18 looks “quite high”, Oleg Ignatov, Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Russia, told The National.
“The collapse of the deal, of course, would be bad in that it would end a successful format where Russians and Ukrainians could talk to each other,” said Mr Ignatov. “This is not positive in the context of the prospect of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.”
Moscow had hoped to use the deal as a precedent for easing sanctions and revising the West’s policy towards it, Mr Ignatov said. From the onset, the Kremlin had the impression that the deal was “more in Ukraine’s interests”, he added.
“This was reinforced by the fact that the sanctions were never eased,” he said. “Now the Kremlin thinks that Russia never got anything out of the deal.”
Russia says, unless a list of demands is met to remove obstacles to its own exports, it will not agree to extend the deal