The UN confirmed this Thursday the extension for 120 days of the agreement that allows the safe transit of Ukrainian cereals through the Black Sea and the Turkish Straits. Said pact, signed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN itself at the end of July, expired this Saturday. The renewal, agreed at the joint inspection center in Istanbul, is a great relief for the basic food basket for half the world.
The good news has been uncovered this morning by the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure, Oleksii Kubrakov, on his social networks. Almost immediately it was confirmed by the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, by the same procedure, with an express recognition of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The latter has also greeted the extension.
On the Russian side, its deputy foreign minister has limited himself to declaring that "Russia is not going to hinder the agreement on grain." The extension, endorsed by the UN, is automatic for 120 days if there is no objection from either party.
Russian President Vladimir Putin put the deal on hold for several days last month, arguing that the safe grain corridor had been used by Ukrainian drones to attack the Crimean port of Sevastopol, under Russian navy control since its inception. Foundation.
Erdogan had assured on Wednesday in Bali that the extension of the agreement had the approval of Putin. So that three Ukrainian ports, among which Odesa stands out, will be able to continue operating safely with this objective. Kyiv intends to add a fourth port to the agreement and extend it by one year.
According to the UN, the Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul has allowed the export, by means of five hundred ships, of eleven million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products, mainly corn, wheat, rapeseed, derivatives of sunflower and barley, as well as fertilizers.
Spain heads the list of importing countries, with more than two million tons, followed at a considerable distance by Turkey, China, Italy and the Netherlands. Only then do some developing countries appear, such as Egypt, something that has deserved the Kremlin's darts.
It should be said that Ukraine and Russia are the breadbasket of the world, with a third of exports, so the green light for the extension has caused an immediate fall of 1.6% in the price of wheat.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) had warned that the suspension of the agreement "would be very serious" for the least developed countries. A small part of these exports are being channeled through the World Food Program. Not in vain, the high cost of bread is the first cause of instability and riots in many societies.
Finally, the UN, after welcoming the agreement "of all parties" has declared itself "fully committed to removing the remaining obstacles to the export of food and fertilizers from the Russian Federation."
It should be remembered that on the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia sank almost the entire modest Ukrainian navy, turning the Sea of Azov and the northern Black Sea into a Russian lake.
However, in order to guarantee the neutrality in the conflict of the vast majority of the countries of the South, Russia cannot allow itself to be seen as the cause of the high cost of cereals and the suffering of the most disadvantaged to earn their daily bread.
In any case, this morning, an infrastructure in the pearl of the Black Sea has been destroyed by a Russian drone or missile, in the first attack against Odesa in several weeks. It has coincided with simultaneous attacks against arms factories and energy infrastructure in Dnipro and other towns in Ukraine.
The prospect of a winter with severe gas, electricity and water restrictions is at the origin of the latest wave of Ukrainian refugees in Istanbul itself. Unlike the first, it is not made up exclusively of women and children, but of entire families and even men of military age. The three waves of Ukrainian refugees registered in Turkey join the same number of Russian refugees and fugitives, for different reasons.
