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Press release on renewing the Black Sea Initiative

18 May 2023 17:13
960-18-05-2023

In connection with expiration of the 60-day deadline for renewing the Black Sea Initiative to export Ukrainian grain on May 18 and in response to requests primarily from our Turkish partners as a party to the agreement, we confirmed the renewal of the agreement for another two months through July 17 without any changes. The agreement will now be valid until the expiration of the 120-day cycle, which will mark one year to the day since the package, proposed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, was signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022, which includes the Russia-UN Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the Secretariat of the United Nations on forwarding Russian food products and fertilisers to world markets, which will remain in effect for three years.

Please note that our principled assessments of the implementation of the interrelated Istanbul agreements have remain unchanged, and so far only the Black Sea Initiative has been implemented with the exception of ammonia exports. There's no measurable progress under the Russia-UN Memorandum. There are obvious issues with the declared humanitarian component of the deal where Ukrainian grain is being exported through this sea corridor mostly to high and above-average income countries, including "well-stocked" European markets. Countries that need it most have received hardly anything, 722,000 tonnes (or 2.5 percent) of the total amount of 30 million tonnes that had been moved from Ukrainian ports over nine months. The export of Russian products, even donations of fertilisers to the neediest countries, continues to be blocked by various aspects of the illegal and unilateral sanctions.

Western capitals and UN platforms continue to talk much and in loud voices about global food security and the threat of hunger. These tasks are explicitly, and in detail, laid out in the Russia-UN Memorandum, which is being systematically sabotaged by Washington, Brussels and London. The Black Sea Initiative doesn't say a word about it.

There is no progress either in resuming ammonia shipments mentioned in both Istanbul documents. In particular, this concerns the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, which the UN Secretary-General focused on during his visit to Kiev on March 8, and a separate initiative, which, like the Russia-UN Memorandum, remains only on paper.

Given the circumstances, we are compelled to issue a reminder primarily to the United States, the EU and Great Britain, which care so much about food security in word only, about the need to actually remove Russian fertiliser and foods from the list of unilateral sanctions. There are five systemically important issues that must be resolved as part of implementing the Russia-UN Memorandum and which have seen no progress whatsoever so far, namely, reconnecting Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT system; supplying spare parts; unblocking transport logistics and insurance; reestablishing the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, and unfreezing the Russian companies' assets. There can be no talk of expanding the Black Sea Initiative in principle without these requirements first being met. The agreement will be terminated after July 17.