Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would speak with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to demand that Ukrainian grain be sent to the “poorest countries” rather than Europe.
“Without taking into account Turkey as an intermediary, practically all the grain leaving Ukraine goes not to the poorest countries, but to Europe,” Putin said.
The President of Russia, speaking at the parliamentary meeting of the 7th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, said that “only two out of 87 ships entered developing countries. Sixty thousand tons out of 2 million.”
“It is worth thinking about how to limit the export of grain and other food products along this route. I will definitely talk about this with Turkish President[Recep Tayyip]Erdogan,” the Russian leader said.
On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of violating the Istanbul International Agreement by preventing Russian grain and fertilizer exports across the Black Sea.
“Our Western colleagues are not doing what the UN Secretary General promised us. [António Guterres]”, Lavrov said at a press conference.
The Russian minister accused Western countries of refusing to take steps to “lift logistical sanctions that prevent free access of (Russian) grains and fertilizers to the world market.”
Lavrov stressed that Moscow is working with the UN to fully implement the agreements reached in July in Istanbul, which created a sea corridor from the coast of Ukraine, which was blocked by the Russians after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, to the Mediterranean Sea for the export of Ukrainian cereals.
The agreement, brokered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also provided for the supply of Russian grain and fertilizer through the Bosphorus.
Several dozen ships with Ukrainian products departed from the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny located on the Black Sea.
Russia, which has turned the Sea of Azov into an inland ocean by seizing the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, claims its export capacity is far greater than Ukraine’s, making its supplies critical to averting a global food crisis.
Some countries, especially African ones, have called for the lifting of sanctions affecting Russian grain exports.
The military offensive launched by Russia on February 24 in Ukraine has already caused nearly 13 million people to flee — more than six million internally displaced people and almost seven million to neighboring countries, according to the latest UN figures. the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion was condemned by the international community as a whole, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing sanctions on Russia in everything from banking to energy to sports.
During the course of the war, the UN presented 5,587 civilian deaths and 7,890 wounded as confirmed, stressing that the real figures are much higher and will only become known after the end of the conflict.