Deal on Grain from Ukraine to End as Fighting Continues

The arrangement allowing Ukraine to ship its grain across the Black Sea was slated to expire Monday at midnight Istanbul time (2100 GMT), thus time was running out.

Sunday saw severe combat on Ukraine’s eastern frontier, according to Kiev, while Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Kyiv’s counteroffensive.

There was no update from the negotiations in Istanbul, where representatives of Turkey and the UN are attempting to convince Russia to accept another extension of the agreement that was first signed there in July 2022.

More than 32 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain have been exported as cargo over the course of the last year thanks to the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

But since Russia has thus far refused to extend the agreement, that flow has stopped.

The Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), which is in charge of the accord, released a statement saying, “The applications have not been approved by all parties.” Since June 27, no additional ships have been given permission to participate.

The Turkish bulk carrier TQ Samsun, the last cargo vessel to be approved by the agreement’s signatories—Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the United Nations—was sailing from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Istanbul as of late Sunday, according to the Marine Traffic website.

Russian opposition

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, expressed confidence in the deal’s chances of renewal on Friday.

But when he claimed that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on the issue, a Kremlin spokeswoman promptly responded that they had not made such a pronouncement.

Putin has threatened to break the treaty several times, claiming that provisions enabling the sale of Russian grain and fertilizer have not been upheld.

“The main goal of the deal, namely the supply of grain to countries in need, including on the African continent, has not been implemented,” he remarked on Saturday during a phone call with his colleague from South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.

China and Turkey are the primary recipients of the grain supplies, along with developed nations, according to statistics from the JCC.

The agreement has assisted the World Food Programme in providing aid to nations like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Sudan who are suffering from severe food shortages.

This explains why UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has been putting in significant effort to extend the agreement. He sent Putin a letter on Tuesday expressing his support for reducing barriers to Russia selling its fertilizers.

Last week, Putin also met with top European Union officials to talk about the impact of the sanctions they put on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine. However, there hasn’t been any public commentary on their discussions.

STRONG FIGHTING

Kyiv has acknowledged that its much expected counteroffensive on the eastern front has run into severe opposition on the ground in Ukraine.

On Friday, Ukraine said that forces had advanced over two kilometers around Melitopol, a city in the south that Russia briefly annexed after the conflict started. According to some observers, their objective is to advance towards the Sea of Azov in order to breach Russian defenses and isolate the Russian-occupied Crimea.

However, Ganna Malyar, the deputy minister of defense for Ukraine, said on Sunday: “The situation has considerably worsened in the east.

“The enemy has been aggressively striking in the Kharkiv region’s Kupiansk sector for the last two days. We are defending ourselves,” Malyar said on Telegram.

However, she said that Ukrainian troops were “gradually moving forward” close to Bakhmut, an eastern city that Russian forces had captured in May.

People need to realize the cost of our advance, a commander on the field named “Bulat” told AFP. “There are many adversaries. To crush them, we need time.

With the aid of heavy weaponry provided by western nations, Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which was begun in June, has so far achieved sluggish advances, moving into areas where Russian soldiers have had time to build and minefield-protect.

In a television interview that was shown on Sunday, Putin stated: “Since the attack started, no adversary effort to penetrate our defenses has been successful. The adversary is unsuccessful.