Russia has threatened to scupper a UN-brokered grain-export deal with Ukraine because of what it calls Western “obstacles” to the export of Russian food and fertilizers.
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During a visit to Turkey on April 7, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that, if the West does not remove banking and insurance restrictions that hamper the export of Russian goods, it will renounce the July 2022 agreement under which Ukraine has been exporting its grain through Black Sea ports.
“If they do not have the desire to honestly approach what [UN Secretary General Antonio] Guterres proposed and so persistently promoted, well, let them continue to ship the relevant products from Ukraine by land, by rail, and by river,” Lavrov said.
He added that Russia would work “outside the framework of this initiative” to export its own products.
The agreement, which was originally to last 120 days, has been extended twice. The second extension, in March, was for only 60 days and expires in the middle of May.
Lavrov said that, since there has been “no further progress in removing obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers and grain, we will think whether this agreement is necessary.”
Moscow has said that extending the deal would require a number of concessions from the West, including the reconnection of Russia’s state Rosselkhozbank to the international SWIFT payment system.
Ukraine and Russia are leading exporters of grain and the deal was brokered in a bid to ease a global food crisis sparked by Russia’s February 2022 unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Lavrov also repeated Moscow’s calls for “a new world order, which we all need in place of the unilateral world order.” Without evidence, he accused the West of violating the principles of the United Nations Charter.
Russia has assumed the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for the month of April, and Lavrov is expected to attend its sessions in New York on April 24 and 25.