Ker tega ne boste mogli prebrati v nobenem velikem mediju, je spodaj nekaj umazanih prodrobnosti, zakaj Rusija ne želi podaljšati žitnega sporazuma z Združenimi narodi.

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In July 2022 the UN General Secretary and Turkey brokered a deal with the Russian Federation under which the Ukraine would be allowed to export grain by shipping it from Ukraine through the Black Sea to other countries. A second part of that agreement included the relief of sanctions that block or hinder Russian export of grain and fertilizer.

The deal came to pass after Ukraine had falsely claimed that Russia had mined the sea route to Ukrainian ports. The mines had been laid by Ukraine:

On Friday, the Ukrainian foreign ministry official said Ukraine had placed some mines. “We have installed naval mines in the exercise of our right to self-defence as stipulated under the Article 51 of the UN Charter”.

Some of those mines broke free, drifted towards Turkey and endangered civil shipping.

There were also loud claims that Ukrainian grain was needed to feed the hungry of the world.

The deal was prolonged twice but now Russia has said that it will end it. The sanctions against Russia agricultural export bank, Rosselkhozbank which was disconnected from the central payment provider SWIFT, and the inability of Russia and others to get insurances for ships exporting from Russia are the main deal breakers:

Russia insists the agreement hasn’t worked for its own exports, blaming Western sanctions for hindering financing and insurance.While sanctions don’t affect food and fertilizer, Moscow is seeking carveouts from restrictions on the Russian Agricultural Bank, as well as movement on its ammonia, a key ingredient in fertilizer, to a Ukrainian Black Sea port. But the ammonia pipeline has been damaged in the war, the U.N. said.

“There is still time to implement the part of the agreements that pertains to our country. So far, this part has not been fulfilled,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week. “And so at the moment, unfortunately, we don’t see any particular grounds for extending this deal.”

The ammonia pipeline had been blown up by Ukraine. Russia wants a guarantee that this does not happen again.

It had also turned out that the flow of grain from Ukraine did not go to hungry people:

A recent investigation by the Austrian outlet eXXpress, however, says that didn’t happen. Almost half of the Ukrainian wheat and corn exports to the EU ended up feeding pigs in Spain to produce its world-famous jamon.According to eXXpress, only 15% of the exports ended up in the countries at risk of famine, including 167,000 tons in Ethiopia and 65,000 tons in Sudan. Spain, on the other hand, received 2.9 million tons of wheat and corn from Ukraine.

There is also significant less need to export grain from Ukraine by sea. Some of its grain exports now go by land and river to Romania and from there into the world. Other exports flood European countries with cheap grain. This has led to local dislocation of agricultural markets especially in Moldavia and Poland.

For lack of men and diesel the new harvest in Ukraine will also likely be much lower than in previous years:

In 2023, Ukrainian farmers can sow 45% of grain fields and harvest 60% less grain than in 2022, Alex Lissitsa, CEO of the Ukrainian club of agricultural business (UCAB), estimated.Such sharp negative production dynamics are a consequence of several factors. In addition, abandoned fields are associated with a drop in productivity, low exports and soaring inflation. If this forecast comes true, this year’s grain harvest will be the weakest since the Ukrainian independence.

Still, the UN General Secretary is trying to offer a new deal:

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed to Russian President that he extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of grain from Ukraine in return for connecting a subsidiary of Russia’s agricultural bank to the SWIFT international payment system, sources told Reuters.A key demand by Moscow is the reconnection of the Russian agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT international payment network. It was cut off by the European Union in June 2022 over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. An EU spokesperson said in May the EU was not considering reinstating Russian banks.

However, the EU is considering connecting to SWIFT a subsidiary of Rosselkhozbank to allow specifically for grain and fertilizer transactions, three sources familiar with discussions told Reuters on Wednesday. The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Guterres has proposed to Putin that Russia allow the Black Sea grain deal to continue for several months, giving the EU time to connect a Rosselkhozbank subsidiary to SWIFT, two of those sources familiar with discussions told Reuters.

There are two problems with this subsidiary solution. A fitting Rosselkhozbank subsidiary does not exist. Creating it would take time. If only the now impossible export payments would flow through a subsidiary it would give the EU some control over those exports. It would know where those were flowing to and could then press the receivers. There would also still be the problem of U.S-dollar payments to Rosselkhozbank and Russian exporters. The EU can not solve those but the U.S. can by lifting its sanctions against Rosselkhozbank.

Russia has thus already dismissed the Guterres plan:

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said last week that Moscow would not be satisfied with such a proposal because it would take “many months” to open a subsidiary and another three months to connect it to SWIFT.She also rejected a U.N. attempt to create an alternative payment channel between Rosselkhozbank and U.S. bank JP Morgan.

The non-existing subsidiary of Rosselkhozbank would give the EU some control over Russian exports. An exclusive U.S-dollar payment channel between Rosselkhozbank and JP Morgan would give the U.S. a similar instrument.

In summary:

The grain deal had two parts. One was the access of ships to Ukrainian harbors. The other was the normal export of grain and fertilizer from Russia.

While Russia had facilitated the first part of the deal the ‘West’ had collectively blocked the second part.

The lengthy creation of exclusive payment channels that can be blocked and controlled by the ‘West’, as Guterres now offers, is not a solution that Russia will support.

When you see the next headline about ‘Russia blocking Ukrainian exports to hungry people’ keep the above in mind.

Vir: Moon of Alabama