Putin announced his conditions for extending grain deal

Russia will extend the grain deal when its demands are met. This was stated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, writеs Russian news agency “Interfax”.

Putin said that as of today, not a single point in the grain deal related to Russian interests has been fulfilled.

In particular, he announced that one of the conditions was that Rosselkhozbank should be connected to SWIFT. This, according to Putin, is related to the movement of money when paying for Russian products.

In addition, he mentioned agreements on logistics, insurance, and “other issues.”

At the same time, Putin said that he had not yet seen Guterres’ new letter, which was sent to him with proposals for the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“But we are in contact with the UN staff. I repeat that they sincerely want the Western countries to fulfill their obligations, but they have not succeeded yet,” Putin said.

Earlier, Guterres said that he hoped that the proposals sent to the Russian president regarding the Black Sea Grain Initiative would help resolve the issue of its extension.

In particular, Guterres proposed to Russian President Putin to extend the grain deal in exchange for the connection of the subsidiary “Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT international payment system.

It has also been reported that the European Union is considering a proposal to create a subsidiary of the sanctioned Rosselkhozbank to restore its connection to the global financial network as a concession to Moscow in order to preserve the grain deal.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry believes that Russia is likely to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July. 

Tags: Russia, Black Sea grain deal