Ukraine proposes to expand the grain agreement to other types of cargo

Ukraine proposed to expand the Black Sea Grain Export Agreement to include more ports and goods.

Ukraine hopes that a decision will be made next week to extend the agreement for at least a year, said the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Yurii Vaskov.

“We hope that no later than next week we will have an understanding from our partners – Turkey and the UN, and the entire market will also have a clear signal regarding the further operation and continuation of the initiative,” Vaskov told Reuters in an interview.

The official also reported that Ukraine offered Turkey and the UN to extend the scope of the agreement to the ports of the Mykolaiv region, which before the russian invasion provided 35% of Ukrainian food exports.

The Ukrainian side also demands to streamline the mandatory inspection of ships transporting food as part of the grain initiative, as russia deliberately slows down inspections in order to reduce the speed of exports, noted Yuriy Vaskov.

“We demand that inspections be streamlined or canceled because it is senseless. Or increase the number of inspection groups,” said the deputy minister. He noted that the inspectors of the Joint Center, which oversees the agreement, conducted only 12 inspections a day, while 25-30 inspections were needed.

“When Turkey and the UN conducted their own inspections, they proved that it was possible to conduct more than 40 inspections per day. Now that russia has returned, we again have a total of 12 inspections per day,” Vaskov stated. According to him, russian federation does not explain the reason for the delays, but they do not hide that they are doing it in order to complicate the operation of the corridor.

Vaskov also noted that neither the UN nor Turkey informed Kyiv about the conditions put forward by russia for the extension of the agreement. So far, there has been no application from russia for the arrival of ships that would plan to transport ammonia from Ukrainian ports.