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Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin's reply to a media question on expanding the Black Sea Initiative

1 June 2023 17:28
1072-01-06-2023

Question: Reuters and a number of other media outlets have reported that the UN offered Russia, Ukraine and Türkiye a plan to start preparations for the transit of Russian ammonia via Ukraine. According to the reports, the UN plan provides for talks on expanding the Black Sea Initiative. The participants in the talks will ostensibly discuss the inclusion of more Ukrainian ports and other cargo in the agreements. Officials from the UN Secretariat have made similar statements. Can you comment on these?

Sergey Vershinin: We noted that recently the media carried many reports on the resumption of Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline operations. Official UN representatives in New York have also commented on this issue. Almost every day, they describe in detail the activity of the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul, which is in charge of implementing the Black Sea Initiative. Not surprisingly, nothing is said about the Russia-UN Memorandum on normalising Russia's agricultural exports.

In this connection, we consider it necessary to make these issues clear and confirm the relevant Russian position. Russian fertiliser exports, including ammonia - the raw material for production - were fixed in both agreements signed in Istanbul on July 22, 2022. Russia is one of the largest ammonia exporters and used to supply world markets with some 4 million tonnes of this chemical every year via the ports of Ventspils (Latvia ) and Yuzhny (Ukraine). However, for over a year, Russia has been unable to export any ammonia, which is one of the reasons for the shortage (about 70 percent) of this key material.

A little less than a year has passed since the signing of the Istanbul package, but Russian ammonia exports have not resumed - via either Ventspils or Yuzhny. The problems with bank transactions, transport logistics, insurance, and frozen assets, triggered by the anti-Russia sanctions, persist and are even getting worse.

At the same time, Ukrainian grain exports continue uninterrupted. The amount of transported grain has already exceeded 30 million tonnes. In this context, we have repeatedly noted the lack of progress in the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum, without which it makes no sense to extend the Black Sea Initiative. We identified five system-wide problems that must be resolved - the reconnecting of Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT; the supply of spare parts; the unblocking of transport logistics and insurance; the resumption of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline operation; and the de-freezing of Russian corporate assets.

UN officials chose the ammonia pipeline from this list of requirements. There is no real progress in the other areas, and nothing is being done to unblock the Ventspils port. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a special visit to Kiev on March 8 to persuade the Ukrainians to allow the restart of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline without any new preconditions, but things remain where they started.

As before, Kiev continues to burden the export of Russian ammonia with various conditions. They are trying to bargain for additional benefits and have stated this openly. Our position remains unchanged - ammonia exports are part of the existing agreements and were supposed to start simultaneously with Ukrainian grain shipping. This fully corresponds to Mr Guterres's announced goals on ensuring global food security, and there is no room for any additional demands in this respect. We have repeatedly explained this position to UN officials, as well as to the representatives of Türkiye and Ukraine as the parties to the Black Sea Initiative, including at the Istanbul meeting on May 10-11.

It is even more surprising that being fully aware of our position, the UN Secretariat continues to exploit the ammonia issue in a bid to create a semblance of some new effort and contact. Moreover, the lack of any result is obvious - the ammonia pipeline has not been operating. Without resolving this problem and the four others I mentioned, there is no way to continue the Black Sea Initiative after July 17, not to mention any discussion of additional ports or the expansion of the range of Ukrainian exports.