Ukraine declares that the Russian Federation is speculating on the topic of the "grain agreement"

Russia is blackmailing the world by disrupting the "grain agreement" and claims that it is unprofitable for itself, although in fact it has doubled its grain exports, said Serhiy Kyslytsia, the permanent representative of Ukraine at the UN.

He said that "grain exports from the Russian Federation doubled compared to January-February 2022, but the Russian Federation still pretends that it is losing from the grain agreement, although in fact Russia was and remains the only threat to food supplies in the Black Sea region. We call on the world community to resolutely respond to the blackmail of the Russian Federation in the form of disruption of supplies."

"If an average of 6.6 vessels were inspected earlier per day, less than 3 inspections have been carried out since May 1. In April, Ukraine shipped less than 3 million tons of agricultural products through the grain corridor, which is only half of the capacity," added Kyslytsia and reminded the members of the UN Security Council that the Russian Federation insists on concluding the agreement on May 18.

At the negotiations on May 11 in Turkey regarding the extension of the grain agreement, it was possible to agree only on the continuation of the negotiations. In case of non-fulfillment of its demands, the Russian Federation threatens to stop the operation of the agreement, and the UN has announced attempts to continue negotiations on this issue.

There are two days left until the end of the 60-day agreed Russian extension of the current agreement, but so far there are no official comments on the further development of the situation.

The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Olga Trofimtseva, spoke about two possible scenarios of events in the event of Russia's disagreement on the extension of the agreement after May 18. She hopes that the Russian Federation will extend the agreement for another 60 days and demand that the UN fulfill its new demands. However, given the unpredictability of the Russian authorities, it can be expected that the Russian Federation will not extend the agreement, but may return to negotiations later, as it was in November 2022.

If the Russian Federation withdraws from the agreement, it will not officially guarantee the safety of ships entering the Ukrainian Black Sea, so it can conduct provocative attacks on the infrastructure, as happened after the signing of the agreement on July 22, 2022. At the same time, it is unlikely that the Russian Federation will attack the ships themselves, since a larger part is the Turkish or Chinese fleet, so an attack on them could set a significant precedent.

The fate of the grain agreement is also influenced by the presidential election in Turkey. Erdoğan considers the grain agreement to be an important achievement, so he seeks to extend it until the second round of elections. This is understood by the Russian Federation, which sees Erdoğan as the best candidate for continuing relations, so it does everything to ensure that he remains in power.

Last week, at the negotiations on the extension of the agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey stated the high probability of an extension, while Russia refuses to extend it until its demands are met.

Since May 7, representatives of the SCC have not scheduled an inspection of any ship that was supposed to enter the port, while only 29 of the planned 52 inspections of ships leaving the ports were carried out.