Ukraine Minister Pleads For Security To Export Grain Amid Concerns Of Food Crisis

Topline

Ukraine’s foreign minister said it is “two steps away” from an agreement with Russia for security measures to resume shipments of grain – the country’s biggest export – as Russian civilian airstrikes wage on and Ukraine warns of a food crisis.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said it is close to an agreement with Russia for security assurances to … [+] export grain through the Black Sea. (Photo credit should read Serhii Hudak/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Future Publishing via Getty Images

Key Facts

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Associated Press on Wednesday that any agreement between the two countries must ensure Russia “will respect these corridors,” and pledge not to strike Ukrainian ports with air missiles or a naval assault, amid talks between Ukrainian and Russian military delegates in Istanbul.

Kuleba told Spanish outlet El Pais they are “two steps away” from an agreement that Ukrainian officials argue is necessary after repeated warnings from President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia’s naval blockade – which stranded at least 25 million tons of grain inside the country – will spark famine and mass migration in the country known as Europe’s “breadbasket.”

Roughly 22% of Ukraine’s cropland is now under Russian control, according to the Moscow Times, which used satellite imagery.

Ukraine plans to launch a “test vessel” from Odesa—a Black Sea port that has been at the heart of Russia’s attacks—on Thursday, the Ukraine Grain Trade stated this week, before it resumes and increases exports.

Big Number

6 million tons. That’s how much grain Ukraine had been exporting, on average, each month before Russia’s invasion began in February, according to the Ukrainian Grain Association. Exports have since dropped off significantly, to 300,000 tons in March and 1 million in April.

Key Background

The talks come two weeks after Ukrainian forces recaptured Snake Island – a critical Black Sea naval outpost that has become infamous as a sign of Ukrainian resistance. Russia called it a “goodwill gesture” to resume grain exports. The Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday that eight cargo ships arrived at Ukrainian ports along the Danube River and Black Sea to transport grain, which had been stockpiled inside the country since Russia’s invasion began in February. Russia continues to target Donetsk cities, including Siversk, Sloviansk and Bakhmut, as its forces withdraw from Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, in Eastern Ukraine. In his daily address on Facebook Sunday night, Zelensky called Russia a “terrorist state,” following a series of attacks in the area, including an attack last month on a Ukrainian mall that he referred to as “one of the most defiant terrorist attacks in European history.” In a video with the Ukrainian national news agency Ukrinform on Monday, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said roughly 80% of Donetsk has fled the region, as the eastern Ukrainian region prepares for a heavy Russian offensive in the wake of a round of air strikes on residential areas. The death toll from a Russian air strike on a Donetsk housing complex on Monday reached 24, and another Russian strike on a residential area this week in Kharkiv left six dead and at least 31 injured—two of the latest strikes on civilians.

Crucial Quote

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted Wednesday that “Russia must immediately halt its systemic ‘filtration’ operations in Ukraine, which have reportedly disappeared, detained, or forcibly deported from their homes approximately 1.6 million innocent Ukrainians, including 260,000 children.”

Tangent

Roughly two-thirds of the 8.8 million Ukrainians who fled to other European countries intend to stay outside the country, according to a UN High Commissioner for Refugees survey released Wednesday of Ukrainians living in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia between May and June.