Statement by the Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN
The Russian Federation is ready to provide a safe corridor in the Black Sea to ensure the export of Ukrainian grain as reported by TASS.
“Russia is ready to provide safe passage for ships to export grain from Ukrainian ports,” said Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya.
At the same time, according to him, Ukraine must clear the sea.
Recall, earlier it became known that Turkey has prepared a roadmap that can help ensure the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the UN are expected to discuss it in the near future.
For his part, Senegalese President Macky Sall said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him he was ready to allow Ukrainian grain exports to alleviate the global food crisis, which has hit Africa particularly hard.
“President Putin has expressed his readiness to facilitate the export of Ukrainian cereals,” Sall wrote on Twitter after meeting with Putin as president of the African Union, Reuters reports.
Russia is also ready to secure exports of its own wheat and fertilizers, Sall said after talks in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on the 100th day of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sall did not say whether Putin had set any conditions for his proposal. Russia has previously said it is ready to allow food vessels to leave Ukraine in exchange for lifting some Western sanctions against it, a proposal Ukraine has described as “blackmail”.
Africa is heavily dependent on grain supplies from Russia and Ukraine, which have been severely disrupted by the war.
“I came to see you to ask you to be aware that our countries, even far from the theater (of the war), are victims of this economic crisis,” Sall told Putin earlier.
Russia’s army has captured much of Ukraine’s southern coast and its warships control access to the country’s Black Sea ports. However, she continues to blame Ukraine and the West for the resulting suspension of Ukrainian grain exports.
In an interview broadcast Friday night, Putin told Russian state television that Ukraine could export grain from ports, including Odessa, if it cleared them of mines.
“Let them remove the mines, we guarantee them free passage in international waters,” he said.
Ukraine did not comment immediately. Odessa and the surrounding region have been hit by Russian missiles more than once, and President Vladimir Zelensky said last month that the port had been paralyzed for probably the first time since World War II.
Putin said the easiest way to export Ukrainian grain was through neighboring Belarus, but that required the West to lift sanctions against Belarus.
Moscow says the sanctions have also affected its own exports of grain and fertilizers, exacerbating shortages. Ukraine and Western governments accuse Russia of using the weapons of the food crisis.
“We are currently witnessing attempts to shift responsibility for what is happening on the world food market, to the emerging problems in this market, to Russia. This is an attempt, as our people say, to transfer these problems from the sick head to the healthy,” he said. Putin.
African countries have been hit hard by the growing crisis, which has led to a sharp rise in prices for cereals, cooking oils, fuels and fertilizers.
Russia and Ukraine provide almost a third of the world’s wheat supplies, with Russia being a key global exporter of fertilizers and Ukraine a major exporter of corn and sunflower oil.
