Russia continues to delay talks on unblocking Ukraine's ports

2022-06-06 12:38:01
Machine translation
Russia continues to delay talks on unblocking Ukraine's ports

Western countries will not lift sanctions against Russia in exchange for unblocking Ukraine's ports. At the same time, the UN is negotiating the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports from Black Sea ports to avoid world hunger. On the eve of the next round of talks scheduled for June 8 in Turkey, the parties express their positions through the press.

 

Russia continues to blame the food crisis on supply chain disruptions and Western sanctions, saying Ukraine has mined its own ports but could export grain via Belarus, which also requires international sanctions.

 

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Russia's military invasion of Ukraine was the cause of the world's grain shortage, while Western sanctions did not affect the cultivation and transportation of Russian agricultural products, but aimed at ending Russia's hostilities.

 

The US government also has no plans to ease sanctions against Russia in exchange for unblocking exports from Ukrainian ports, as it does not believe in empty promises. It will continue to put economic pressure on Russia to end the war, blockade Ukrainian ports, attack grain elevators and grain ships. This will solve the problem of rising world prices for raw materials and food as soon as possible, - said the US State Department.

 

According to the Ukrainian authorities, as of May, 70 foreign ships and millions of tons of grain remained blocked in ports, causing the country to lose more than $ 170 million a day.

 

Putin has promised that Russia will not use the corridors to be demined to attack Ukraine to pass grain ships. But the Ukrainian authorities will not start demining ports without guarantees that they will not include Russian warships.

 

"After clearing the corridors for the passage of ships and reporting the relevant coordinates, they can be used by the Russian military to land in the absence of a military convoy of NATO or UN," - said the head of the monitoring group of the Black Sea Institute for Strategic Studies, Black Sea News editor Andrei Klimenko. Therefore, the presence of warships of partner countries in the Black Sea should be a prerequisite for demining Ukraine's ports.

 

Ukraine and Russia continue to accuse each other of planting drifting mines in the Black Sea that threaten shipping. To restore merchant shipping in the region, minesweepers must first clear the waters of mines.

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