West failing to keep promise to facilitate Russian food exports says Lavrov

• Sergei Lavrov says the West is failing to keep its promise to help Russian food and fertiliser exports reach global markets.
• The pledge was part of a July deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to end a blockade on grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Tuesday that the West was failing to keep its promise to help Russian food and fertiliser exports reach global markets, raising concerns about Russia’s commitment to a historic grain deal struck with Ukraine.

According to Lavrov, the West has not eased sanctions to make it easier for Russia to export agricultural products abroad. Moscow saw the pledge as an important part of a July deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to end a blockade on grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports and alleviate a looming global food crisis.

“Our Western colleagues are not doing what we were promised by the U.N. Secretary-General,” Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.

“They are not taking decisions to remove the logistic sanctions that prevent the free access of Russian grain and fertilisers to world markets.”

Moscow claims that Western sanctions make it more difficult to arrange shipping and cargo insurance, despite the fact that they do not directly target its food and fertiliser exports.

Lavrov stated that he was in contact with the United Nations and that he was pressuring the world body to ensure that Western countries kept their end of the grain deal.

The agreement remains the only significant diplomatic breakthrough in Russia’s six-month war against Ukraine.

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