The United States and UN Secretary General António Guterres are negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to unblock grain supplies from the republic.

This was announced on May 16 at a briefing on global food security, said US Ambassador to the world organization Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

“We also have discussions with the Ukrainian side about possible measures to bring to the market some of the products available in Ukraine,” she said.

According to her, the main problem preventing the export of agricultural resources from Ukraine is the inaccessibility of sea routes due to drifting mines in the Black Sea.

At the same time, Thomas-Greenfield kept silent about the fact that they were installed by the Ukrainian authorities.

She accused Russia of blocking Ukrainian ships in ports.

The diplomat also once again blamed the impending crisis on Russia, saying that it was allegedly caused by a special operation to protect Donbass, and not by sanctions imposed by Western countries.

  • US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield

  • AP

  • © John Minchillo

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal, citing its diplomatic sources, reported on May 16 that António Guterres offered to ease restrictions on the export of Russian and Belarusian potash fertilizers in exchange for the passage of ships with grain from Ukrainian ports.

According to the interlocutors of the publication, the Secretary General is negotiating with Russia, Turkey and other countries, and Ankara even expressed its readiness to take part in the clearance of the Black Sea to ensure unhindered navigation.

However, the official representative of the Secretary General, Stefan Dujarric, was unable to confirm this information in response to a corresponding request from TASS.

Grain blockade

At the same time, estimates of the amount of grain blocked in Ukraine differ.

Thus, the director of the UN World Food Program in Germany, Martin Frick, in an interview with the German Press Agency on May 1, said that about 4.5 million tons of grain had accumulated in Ukrainian ports.

Other data was announced on May 10 at a briefing at the White House by US President Joe Biden, saying that 20 million tons have accumulated in Ukrainian warehouses.

According to him, the inability to supply these volumes to world markets provokes an increase in food prices.

In turn, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock on May 12, before the start of the meeting of foreign ministers of the G7 countries, stated that 25 million tons of grain were blocked in Ukrainian ports alone.

She also accused Russia of starting a "grain war".

At the same time, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Ukraine ranks fifth in wheat exports (Russia ranks first in this indicator).

Together, these countries provide 19% of the world's supply of barley, 14% of wheat and 4% of corn.

In the 2021/22 season, which began in July, Ukraine accounted for 10% of global wheat exports, and Russia for 16%, according to data from the Foreign Agricultural Service of the US Department of Agriculture.

Western interest

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, at a press conference following the EU Council meeting in Brussels on May 16, said that the EU should help Kyiv produce and export grain crops.

“Ukraine's storage facilities are now filled to capacity, as it cannot export this grain.

And in order to receive a new crop, she needs to free up space in them.

We are working on how to help her take this grain out by rail through the “corridors of solidarity,” he said.

Earlier, on May 12, the European Commission presented a plan to help the republic to ensure the export of agricultural products in the context of the ongoing conflict.

As the European Commissioner for Transport Adina Valyan noted at the time, 20 million tons of grain should leave Ukraine in less than three months.

“This is a task of gigantic proportions, and therefore it is extremely important to coordinate and optimize supply chains, introduce new routes and avoid bottlenecks as much as possible,” she said.

  • Harvesting in Ukraine

  • AFP

  • © Anatolii STEPANOV / FAO

According to her, the plan provides for both emergency solutions and medium and long-term measures to strengthen the interconnection and integration of the infrastructures of Ukraine and the EU.

Thus, we are talking about providing Ukraine with additional transport, establishing a priority for the supply of Ukrainian agricultural products and flexible customs procedures, as well as allocating available storage facilities in the EU for storage.

In Russia, Brussels' enthusiasm was criticized.

According to the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, the emptying of Ukraine's storage facilities will endanger its population.

“The inhabitants of Ukraine will find themselves without grain reserves, and as for the future harvest, firstly, they still have to live to see it, and secondly, they do not have diesel fuel and gasoline for sowing.

As a result of such cynical proposals, only European countries become beneficiaries, ”he wrote in his Telegram channel.

Individual countries also seek to assist Ukraine in exporting grain.

Readiness to send ships to European ports for Ukrainian products was expressed on May 14 by Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly.

The export of grain from the republic through the ports of Galati and Constanta was discussed with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on May 15 by Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu.

Poland promises to increase rail and road transportation for the import of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Thus, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the country, Henryk Kowalczyk, said on May 16 that during the visit of his Ukrainian counterpart Nikolai Solsky to Warsaw, a protocol was signed to facilitate the transportation of grain through Poland.

In particular, it provides for the creation of a joint Polish-Ukrainian enterprise, which will be engaged in the export of grain from Ukraine.  

security threat

The intentions of Western countries to pump out its agricultural reserves from Ukraine by any means under the plausible pretext of world hunger may lead to a deterioration in the food situation in the republic itself, experts say.

“They just want to rob Ukrainians, take grain away on the sly for cheap or even for nothing.

With its help, the West hopes to get rich and patch up the holes in the global economy that have formed due to their absolutely erroneous sanctions policy, ”explained Senator, Ambassador Extraordinary Konstantin Dolgov in an interview with RT.

This opinion is shared by Mikhail Krivoguz, a leading researcher at IMEMO RAS.

According to him, the West is now trying to take everything worthwhile from Ukraine as much as possible, since it does not know for sure how the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv will end.

“With one hand, the same Europe threatens Russia with embargoes and sanctions, and with the other hand, it rakes in as many energy carriers from the Russian Federation and agricultural resources from Ukraine as possible.

After all, they don’t know whether those territories that the Russian Federation now occupies will return under the jurisdiction of Kyiv, and the prospects for the future harvest in the republic are unclear, ”the expert said.

At the same time, as Konstantin Dolgov noted, the Kyiv authorities do not want to think about it, as they pursue their own interests in this whole situation.

“Least of all in Kyiv they care about the well-being of their own citizens.

Here we are already talking about attempts to fill their pockets at the expense of the population.

In addition, they need weapons to fulfill the US order to weaken Russia, and they actually pay for it with their natural product, ”the senator added.

In turn, Viktor Supyan, deputy director of the Institute for the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT, noted that both the United States and Europe are cunning, calling the lack of Ukrainian grain on world markets perhaps the main reason for a possible food crisis.

“While the fundamental reason here should be considered unfavorable climatic conditions in a number of countries, namely the drought in India, Latin America, the United States itself, and Africa.

The fact that it is impossible to export grain from Ukraine is one of the reasons, and it is secondary,” the analyst expressed his opinion.

He also drew attention to the fact that, despite all the anxiety of Western countries about the impending crisis, they are nevertheless not going to ease sanctions against Russia, which is one of the key players in the global agricultural market and an important participant in food chains.

“The West, on the contrary, continues to support the conflict in Ukraine, since it cannot allow peace to be concluded there on Russia’s terms, even despite all the destructiveness of this situation for the world economy,” Supyan summed up.