Russia has found an effective way to significantly reduce grain exports from Ukraine by excluding the Pivdennyi port from the initiative

UkrAgroConsult

Ukraine’s Pivdennyi port has suspended operations because Russia refuses to allow cargo ships to enter it, effectively excluding it from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

This was reported by Yuriy Vaskov, Deputy Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, to Reuters.

“Formally, Pivdennyi port is part of the Initiative, but in fact it hasn’t been there for a month. No fleet is coming to it,” Vaskov said.

On Monday, the UN expressed concern that Pivdennyi port has not received a single ship under the agreement since May 2.

According to him, all ships within the grain corridor are inspected by a joint team of inspectors from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN, but Russian inspectors refuse to check ships that have been heading to Pivdennyi since April 29.

“They (Russia – ed.) have now found an effective way to significantly reduce grain exports by excluding Pivdennyi port, which handles large-tonnage vessels, from the initiative,” Vaskov explained.

He emphasized that this indicates a “gross violation” of the agreement by Russia.

“Pivdennyi is the largest port under the grain deal. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, the port currently stores about 1.5 million tons of food for future export to 10 countries, with 26 ships due to arrive.

As reported, in May, Russia threatened to block the grain corridor, although the agreements provided for an automatic extension of its operation for four months, until July 18.

In mid-April, Russia began to unreasonably restrict the work of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and in May, it actually blocked it by refusing to register a new fleet and conduct inspections of the fleet that was being loaded into Ukrainian ports.

On May 17, Russia allegedly agreed to extend the agreement for another two months. On May 19, inspections of ships en route to Ukrainian ports, which had been suspended since May 7 due to the position of the Russian side in the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), resumed, but only for two of them.

“The “Grain Initiative”, launched in July 2022, allowed grain exports from three Ukrainian ports: Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi.

Tags: restrictions, Pivdennyi port, Black Sea grain corridor