It hasn’t worked for the last month: Solskyi on suspension of grain deal
The suspension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative is nothing new for Ukraine. Over the past month, the agreement has been virtually non-existent.
This was stated by Mykola Solskyi, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, on the air of the United News telethon.
– “Over the past month, we have been living in an environment where the agreement was legally working, but not in practice, because the number of ships was reduced to a minimum. We were already exporting grain via some other routes, and no new ships were coming in. The business realised that the chances of continuing were in doubt. This is not something new, we are ready for it, but it is more difficult for us. The fact that we want the corridor to be restored is obvious,” he said.
Solsky noted that Ukraine could use Croatian ports to export agricultural products. However, their capacities will not be enough, so it will be necessary to involve ports in other countries.
– This is a partially viable option (to use Croatian ports for the grain deal – Ed.). There is no panacea, no single port will solve all problems. This route will conditionally go through Zakarpattia and Hungary. The volume is some hundreds of thousands (of tonnes – Ed.), but we need millions. I think we can use Slovenian and Italian ports on the Adriatic Sea, as well as the Baltic ports of Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, and the Netherlands,” the minister explained.
On 17 July, the Kremlin announced that Russia would not extend the grain deal.
In this regard, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed that the UN and Turkey jointly ensure the operation of the food corridor and ship inspections.
