Ships carrying Ukrainian grain and agricultural products were briefly blocked in Black Sea ports Wednesday but resumed after Russia agreed to return to a Turkey and UN-brokered deal that would allow for the safe sea passage of vital grain exports.
Turkey and the Russian authorities then said the UN-brokered Ukrainian grain export deal was to resume on Wednesday.
Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had called Turkey’s Hulusi Akar and informed him that the grain corridor agreement would “continue in the same way as before” as of Wednesday.
Erdogan added that the deal would prioritise shipments to African nations, including Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan, in line with Russia’s concerns that most of the grain was ending up in richer nations.
Moscow suspended brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, after a Russian warship in the Black Sea was damaged. Russia blamed the incident on a Ukrainian drone strike.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Russia’s suspension of the deal meant Moscow was “weaponizing food in the war it started,” and officials from the United States and Ukraine accused Russia of bad faith.
Ukrainian President Zelensky accused Russia of creating an “artificial famine,” and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres jumped into negotiations to revive the crucial humanitarian food corridor.
Ukraine and Russia are both top global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food, particularly to countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.
“This is an absolutely deliberate blockade by Russia. This is an absolutely transparent intention of Russia to return the threat of large-scale famine to Africa and Asia,” Zelensky said last week.
The United Nations and Turkey had both brokered separate deals with Russia and Ukraine this summer to establish the exports’ safe passage as Russia’s war on Ukraine wages on.
Meanwhile, Russia will summon Britain’s ambassador to Moscow over what it said was the involvement of British specialists in a Ukrainian drone strike on its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
Russia suspended participation in a UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative on Saturday after what it said was a major drone attack on vessels in the Bay of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
“These actions were carried out under the guidance of British specialists,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters on Wednesday.
Britain has dismissed the assertion as false.