Russia should continue participating in Black Sea grain deal, urges EU official

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) – Russia must stay engaged in the Black Sea grain deal as it will be "solely responsible" for disruptions in grain deliveries if it backs out of the agreement, an EU official said on Wednesday.

“It is essential that Russia remains engaged in the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” Peter Stano, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson on foreign affairs, told Anadolu.

His comments came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow considered withdrawing from the grain deal that opens export corridors for Ukrainian agricultural products.

Putin said Russia was "once again deceived" and “nothing has been done” to implement its part of the agreement.

Türkiye, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine signed the agreement in Istanbul last July to resume grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, which were halted after Russia started a war on Ukraine in February last year.

The deal has been renewed several times since then, and was extended for another two months on May 18.

Moscow has linked the inclusion of its state-owned Russian Agricultural Bank in the SWIFT international payment system to further extend the agreement. It has also complained that the deal fails to deliver on a promise to free up Russian agricultural exports said to have been blocked due to Western sanctions.

“Should Russia pull out of the agreement, it would again block the main route allowing to export grains for human consumption in large quantities and in an economically viable way,” Stano said.

“Russia is using hunger not only as a weapon against the Ukrainian people” but as a “geopolitical tool to increase the suffering of the most vulnerable people in Africa, Asia or the Middle East,” he added.

If Moscow withdrew from the deal, it “would be again solely responsible for disruptions of grain deliveries worldwide,” Stano asserted.

“As so often, here Russia is also manipulating facts and spreading lies,” he said, referring to Putin’s criticism of being “deceived” by its partners on allowing Russian export.

Citing data from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization, Stano said Russia's fertilizer exports increased by “an impressive 89% in value and just a 10% decrease in volume” in 2022.

In addition, Russian grain exports in the 2022/23 marketing year are "forecast to be around 55 million tons, which is 18% above the five-year average volume, amid a record high output obtained in 2022 and a strong pace of sales,” he added.

“It is definitely not Russia who is losing out here,” Stano underlined, stressing that Moscow must end the war.

As of May 2023, over 30 million metric tons of grain and agricultural products have been moved to 45 countries under the deal, helping to bring down global food prices and stabilizing markets.