Russia and the UN sit at the table

The UN and Russia will sit down at the negotiating table in Geneva to extend the grain corridor agreement.

With the start of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine on February 24, millions of tons of grain got stuck in Ukrainian ports; With the grain agreement signed in Istanbul in July 2022, mediated by Turkey and the UN, a corridor was opened to extract grain from the Black Sea.

According to the UN, 23.7 million tons of grain were exported under the grain agreement.

The grain deal will be automatically extended on March 18 if Moscow or Kyiv do not object.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that extending the grain deal had become “difficult” because a parallel agreement giving Russia the right to export was “not respected.”

“Our colleagues in the US and the EU say that the sanctions do not apply to food and fertilizers, but they are not being honest about it,” Lavrov said.

The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that a delegation would arrive in Geneva on March 13 to discuss the grain agreement. The UN confirmed that the talks will take place on Monday.

What’s happened?
On July 22, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and the United Nations (UN) signed an “Initiative document for the safe shipment of grain and food from Ukrainian ports” to prevent a possible food crisis in the world.