Ukraine and Russia near deal to end blockade of grain exports

Ukraine and Russia are close to agreeing a deal to secure the safe passage of millions of tonnes of grain through the Black Sea but remain at odds over how to ensure the security of the ports and ships along the crucial export route, according to people familiar with the UN-led negotiations. The four-party agreement, which is also being mediated by Turkey, would end a months-long Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports that has cut off the export route for one of the world’s leading grain producers and threatened a global food crisis. Russia and Ukraine have agreed to monitor ships en route to and from ports including Odesa at two control centres — one in Istanbul and a second on the Black Sea — where the ships will be inspected. Russia has also given some assurances it will not launch strikes on cargo ships that would collect the 22mn tonnes of wheat, corn and other products that have been trapped on Ukraine’s coast since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of the country five months ago, according to officials and diplomats briefed on the talks. But Ukraine is not fully convinced by the offer of safe passage and is also demanding a commitment ensuring Russia will not attack its ports. Ukrainian officials have suggested the outlines of a deal could be agreed in the next few days, according to EU sources who spoke to the Financial Times. But the lack of agreement on key issues means it could be as long as three weeks before shipments resume, according to people briefed on the talks. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose close ties with both Kyiv and Moscow have enabled him to be a mediator in the conflict, hoped to obtain the security guarantees from Putin at a three-way summit in Tehran on Tuesday, the people added. Turkish officials have expressed optimism that, after negotiators agreed a skeleton plan in Istanbul last week, a fresh round of talks will take place to finalise a deal in Turkey’s largest city later this week. The Ukrainian and Turkish governments did not respond to requests for comment on the talks. Putin thanked Erdoğan for his efforts to find a solution to the grain crisis. “We have moved forward through your mediation. Not all the issues have been solved, but it’s good that there’s movement already,” Putin said, according to Interfax. Ukraine is running out of time to ship last year’s harvest before it rots in storage and has warned a failure to export the grain will deprive farmers of the ability to finance future planting cycles. Russia has launched several missile attacks targeting port infrastructure, including grain silos, along the Black Sea, where Ukraine has laid mines to prevent a coastal assault.

Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking commercial ships and stealing and selling grain from occupied territory. Russia says it has begun grain shipments from ports in Ukrainian territory under its control but blames Kyiv’s mines for halting traffic in the Black Sea. Kyiv still harbours some misgivings about Ankara’s role given Turkey’s apparent reluctance to intercept ships transporting grain that Ukraine says has been stolen from its farmers. This month, Turkey detained the Russia-flagged Zhibek Zholy vessel at Ukraine’s request only to let it depart a few days later. A further sticking point is who will represent Russia at the Black Sea monitoring station, which is likely to be in Odesa. While officials from Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and the UN will follow the vessels at a control centre in Istanbul, Moscow is pushing for officials from a former Soviet nation to act as its representatives at the second inspection site, said two people familiar with the talks. Russia has demanded the west roll back sanctions it says have crippled its own agriculture exports as part of any potential deal. New EU sanctions under discussion against Sberbank, Russia’s biggest bank, include a carve-out for transactions involving food. Brussels is also set to agree measures that would exempt food and fertiliser trading from existing sanctions against Moscow, in an attempt to free up exports from Russia. Those steps were not related to efforts to strike a deal with Moscow over the Black Sea, a senior EU official involved in drawing up the sanctions told the FT, but part of a wider move to help ease the global food crisis. At the summit, Putin’s first face-to-face meeting with Erdoğan in nearly a year, the leaders planned to discuss other issues including the conflict in Syria and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh contested by Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as bilateral relations. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, told state newswire RIA Novosti that Putin did not discuss drone supplies with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or its president Ebrahim Raisi. Iran’s leaders called for withdrawal of US forces from east of the Euphrates in Syria. Khamenei also told Putin that his war on Ukraine was pre-emptive or else the west had initiated it.

Tags: security, ships, Odesa, Ukraine, Istanbul, Russia, Turkey, export, grain, Black Sea, deal, ports