Ukraine calls on the international community to prevent russian federation from sabotaging the Grain Agreement

Ukraine calls on the UN and Turkey to demand that russia immediately stop artificially delaying ships and stop russia’s attempts to use food as a weapon.

The actions of the terrorist country delay the work of the “grain corridor” and undermine the Black Sea Grain Initiative in general. The russians obstruct shipping in the Black Sea and free access of food to world markets. This was stated in a joint statement by the Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba.

“Representatives of russian federation as part of the inspection groups at the SCC have been systematically delaying the inspection of ships heading through the Bosphorus Strait to Ukrainian ports for several months in a row. In particular, russian inspectors deliberately slow down the terms of inspections, regularly demand unregulated documentation, refuse to work during working hours and look for other unjustified reasons to stop inspections. Every day, less than half of the planned 10 inspections take place,” the statement reads.

Such a destructive policy of russia led to a systematic decrease in cargo traffic within the framework of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. In the last three months alone, the world has not received 10 million tons of Ukrainian food, and this negative trend is gaining momentum.

Currently, a queue of more than 140 ships has formed in the Bosphorus, the vast majority of which have been waiting there for more than a month. The food security of countries that depend on the export of Ukrainian agricultural products is under threat.

At the same time, in 2022, the volume of transportation through seaports of russian federation in the Azov-Black Sea basin amounted to more than 250 million tons, which exceeded the indicators of 2021. At the same time, inspections of these vessels in the Bosphorus do not take place. This, in particular, makes it possible for russian federation to use merchant ships to receive military goods in order to continue the war against Ukraine.