Roving Periscope: Grain-burdened, Russia resumes exports via the Black Sea
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Russia’s threat to pull out from an UN-brokered July grain deal via Turkey was as abrupt as Moscow’s resumption of the grain trade six days later.
After the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet and its home port came under drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol on October 29, Moscow threatened to pull out of the deal, blaming Ukraine for using the maritime corridor to carry out attacks on the Russian navy.
But Kyiv did not claim responsibility. It might have forced Russia to rethink its pull-out to clear its own grain and fertilizers stocks as the next crop season is set to begin after the winter beginning this month. Moscow itself was in a hurry to export its own stocks before winter snow made it difficult.
On July 22, in the middle of their war, Ukraine and Russia, the world’s biggest grain producers and Europe’s “bread basket”, signed the UN-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative, envisaging shipment of grain via Turkey to poorer countries, until November 19.
A day after Russia agreed to resume exports on Wednesday from the Black Sea, six grain ships left Ukraine’s ports, Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Thursday.
“After the resumption of the grain initiative, six ships left Ukrainian ports. Thus, the number of ships leaving the ports exceeded 426 and the amount of grain transported surpassed 9.7 million tons,” Akar said, according to the Anadolu news agency.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Russia had agreed to resume grain exports as per the July deal brokered by the UN and Turkey.
At present, negotiations are in progress for an extension of the November 19 deadline for the grain deal. Earlier, Erdogan said that Ankara is determined to transfer Russian grain and fertilizers to less developed countries.
Trying to justify his U-turn, President Vladimir Putin said Russia was resuming participation in the deal because it had received “written guarantees” from Ukraine that the safe-passage corridor wouldn’t be used for military purposes. Ironically, Ukraine has long said it wouldn’t use it for such operations.
Nearly 9.7 million tons of grains and other foodstuffs have been shipped since the July deal, according to the UN. The Russian threat to pull out of the deal increased grain prices in many countries last week.
In televised comments, Putin warned Russia reserved the right to pull out of the agreement again if Ukraine violates it. His Foreign Ministry said the deal’s extension would be discussed separately, according to Tass.
The West saw in Russia’s moves its desperate attempts to quickly end its February 24 invasion of Ukraine before the onset of freezing winter that might make the movement of Russian armed forces even more difficult.
“Putin wants to compel the West to negotiate with him as soon as possible to freeze the conflict. His direct proposals did not work, so he is resorting to other strategies like talking about Ukrainian dirty bomb, threatening nuclear escalation or pulling out from the grain deal…all to get them around the table with him,” said Oksana Antonenko, Director at Control Risks in London. “So far it did not work and I think will not work, at least soon.”
