Russia has said it will not extend an international deal to allow the safe shipment of Ukrainian grain through its ports in the black Sea, thereby stalling the export of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. The grain pact helped lower food prices by more than 20 percent globally. The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey, has allowed 32.9 million metric tonnes of food to be exported from war-torn Ukraine since August. The deal created a safe corridor for Ukraine’s grain exports from three Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Yuzhny and Chornomorsk. More than half of that grain went to developing countries, including those getting relief from the World Food Programme (WFP), according to the Joint Coordination Centre in Istanbul.
The deal aimed to help avert famine by injecting more wheat, sunflower, oil, fertiliser and other products into world markets, including for humanitarian needs.
The deal has helped to bring down prices and ease a global food crisis. Prices for wheat, the main ingredient in bread, have fallen about 17 percent so far this year while corn is down about 26 percent.
Kyiv and Moscow are among the largest exporters of grain in the world, and the blockade has caused grain price to rise dramatically.
Under the agreement, a coalition of Turkish, Ukrainian and UN staff monitored the loading of grain into vessels in Ukrainian ports before navigating a preplanned route through the Black Sea, which is heavily mined by Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Ukrainian pilot vessels guided commercial vessels transporting the grain in order to navigate the mined areas around the coastline using a map of safe channels provided by the Ukrainian side.
The vessels then crossed the Black Sea towards Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait while being strictly monitored by a joint coordination centre in Istanbul, containing representatives from the UN, Ukraine, Russia and Turkey.
Vessels making their way into Ukraine were inspected under the supervision of the same joint coordination centre to ensure they were not carrying weapons.
Russia had been saying for months that conditions for the deal’s extension had not been fulfilled.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said last week that he wanted an end to sanctions on the Russian Agricultural Bank.
The Kremlin however said on Monday that Russia would “return” to the deal “immediately” if its demands to improve its own grain and fertilizer exports are met.
