Russia and Turkey held talks Wednesday to restart the export of Ukrainian grain and signaled progress toward the goal, although Ukraine will need to agree to any plans.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Istanbul and expressed support for a UN plan to open safe corridors for cargo ships to leave Ukraine’s ports.
Cavusoglu said the UN plan was “reasonable” but said it requires cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv. To facilitate exports, Ukraine would need to de-mine its port of Odesa, but Ukrainian officials don’t trust that Russia wouldn’t use the opportunity to attack the port. Ukraine has said it needs “effective security guarantees” before it can allow ships to leave.
Lavrov said Russia had repeatedly guaranteed it would allow the safe passage of ships to allow transit to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, but that it is up to Ukraine to de-mine the ports.
“To solve the problem, the only thing needed is for the Ukrainians to let vessels out of their ports, either by de-mining them or by marking out safe corridors, nothing more is required,” Lavrov said after talks with Cavusoglu.
Moscow also repeated a call on Wednesday for the West to ease sanctions on Russia to allow the export of Russian grain. “President Putin said that in order for Russian grain volumes to be delivered to international markets, direct and indirect sanctions against Russia must be lifted,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Sanctions imposed on Russian shipping by the US and its allies technically have exemptions for grain shipments, but the sanctions discourage companies and ports from doing business with Russian ships altogether.
Looking at the map you might wonder where the ukranian grain is produced and by whom?
Right. The best and major part of it is produced by the people deemed “subhumans” and “cockroaches” by the US imposed Nazi regime in the southern Russian speaking half of the country and their grain is mostly stored in ukie silos further west. When the Nazi forces retreats from an area, the first thing they do is to burn down the silos where the grain is stored and then on to “revenge” attacks on the civilians from a distance.
Next harvest will be exported under the Russian flag and rump ukraine will have non of it.
Apparently Turkey has got a firm grip of Putin’s little nut, that’s great news!
Ukrainian “fears” about Russia attacking Odessa from the sea are just an excuse; Ukraine doesn’t actually want a solution to the grain backup; they want NATO to jump in and attack Russia. So it is in Ukraine’s interest to with-hold grain from the market; the more they do it, the worse the food shortage gets, the more people will demand a “solution” that favors Ukraine. So, they resist every opportunity to increase rail and truck shipments direct to neighboring NATO nations, and will resist anything that would permit shipments to leave via the Black Sea.
As far as “attacking Odessa from the sea” goes, Russian amphibious capability in the Black Sea is extremely limited; not really a threat, and now that Ukraine has harpoon launchers, it’s a moot point anyway; no Russian vessel is going anywhere within range.
I am fed up with Ukrainian manipulation of information, and our media’s cowardly acquiescence to it. I don’t support Russia’s invasion, but I am sick of the Ukrainian leadership as well.
Hey Ukraine, we’ll let you export your grain if you clear all of the water mines out of your coastal waters so we can then conduct a full amphibian assault and complete our land grabbing operation
Slavic solutions are welcome. As this article points out the decision rests with Ukrainian authorities. Anglosphere chauvanism will not feed the world’s masses and the below G7/G8- G20 countries which they so often like to forget.
Sidenote: Дмитрий Витальевич Тренин is mentioned in today’s Responsible Statecraft.
Tough choice for Ukraine. Open its coastal waters to grain exports, help with the global shortage, and make some revenue… then have Russia invade you utilizing the very same corridors you just cleared or… option #2: stay closed. Anyone fighting to defend his/her nation knows the answer.
US propaganda. This is a tempest in a tea pot and a bid to get NATO involved in Ukraine. The amount of grain Ukraine actually supplies to the world is miniscule. In 2017 the world produced 2.2 billion metric tons of grain. Ukraine this year has approx 20 million tons to sell…. apporx 0.009% of the world’s total. Propaganda writ large.
Your presentation of information is misleading. Let me help you with the facts. Top exporters of grain in the world as of 2020. (Unit=ton)
1 Russia 37,267,014
2 United States 26,131,6
3 Canada 26,110,509
4 France 19,792,597
5 Ukraine 18,055,673
You can google this or stay with Putinpedia. Your choice.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271943/total-world-grain-production-since-2008-2009/
Nice try.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/032397808bea8238dc83e1490419fc5230362d0acdfb73dd45efdd5e68844976.jpg Wow, how very compelling to share some thing behind a $39 a month paywall. Here you go, though. From the same website.
http://www.statista.com is NOT behind a pay wall. I don’t use paywall sites. Ever. What threatens global food security is Ukraine refusing to demine the ports it still controls on the Black Sea. There are other routes that can be used for export of Ukrainian grains if the EU was that concerned about world food security which apparently it is not. Russia btw has offered the use of the ports it controls on the Sea of Azov for grain export. And 20-22 million tons of grain for export is still a miniscule amount of annual world grain production of 2.2 billions tons.
Then you must be a registered user or something, with access to it, because this is what I get. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0934d16a638295def1ef835317dee21fffc0258b18cf0c4ed89dda06fec6f5e6.jpg
Haha, Putinpedia, that’s why most of them are so confused and lost.