President Vladimir Putin has said Russia is suspending — but not ending — its participation in a deal that allows safe passage for ships carrying Ukrainian grain exports.
Moscow pulled out of the UN-brokered deal on Saturday, accusing Ukraine of using a protected corridor in the Black Sea to attack its fleet.
The UN says there were no ships inside the corridor that night.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deal would be honored and accused Russia of “blackmailing the world with hunger” – a claim Russia denies.
Despite the destruction, 12 ships carrying 354,500 tons of food, including grain, left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Monday, Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said. This is a record volume of exports since the beginning of the grain trade, a spokesman for the military administration of Odessa told JEE News.
The infrastructure ministry added that one of the ships carrying 40,000 tonnes of grain was destined for Ethiopia, where there was a “real possibility of mass starvation”.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, its navy blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, blocking nearly 20 million tons of the country’s exports of grain, corn and other goods such as sunflower oil. Food was trapped.
But in July, a deal between Ukraine and Russia allowed Turkey and the United Nations to resume grain exports through Black Sea ports.
However, on Monday, President Putin said the deal was being suspended, citing a “massive” drone attack on his fleet in Crimea that he blamed on Kyiv.
He said that it is important to ensure maritime safety and it is very dangerous to carry out grain exports in such circumstances.
“Ukraine must guarantee that civilian aircraft will not be in danger,” Mr. Putin said in a televised address.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attack, and has said that Moscow had long planned to abandon the international arbitration agreement and used the attack as a pretext.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Ukrainian president, said that in such a situation when Russia is talking about the impossibility of guaranteeing the safety of shipping in these areas, such an agreement is hardly possible, and it will take a different role. does – too dangerous, dangerous and uncertain, said Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Ukrainian president.
Russia’s withdrawal from the deal has been condemned by the United States, which said Moscow was “weaponizing food”.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Russia to reverse its decision, saying jeopardizing grain and fertilizer exports would contribute to the global food crisis.
Russia’s ambassador to the US has rejected accusations that his country is exacerbating the global food crisis, saying it is unfair to criticize Russia.
The suspension comes as Russia says it has extended withdrawals from the occupied Kherson region, despite saying at the weekend that they had ended.
