Russia Kills Black Sea Grain Deal, Key to Global Food Supplies

Russia on Monday suspended a critical wartime deal allowing Ukrainian grain to reach consumers in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, raising concerns of increased food prices and hunger.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia wouldn’t renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative until its demands were met. Moscow, under strong international sanctions, wants better market access for its own agricultural products, including fertilizer and grain.

“Unfortunately, the part relating to Russia of these Black Sea agreements have not been implemented so far,” Peskov said. “Therefore, its effect is terminated.”

“When the part of the Black Sea deal related to Russia is implemented, Russia will immediately return to the implementation of the deal.” 

Some 33 million metric tons of grain has been exported from Ukrainian Black Sea ports since the United Nations first brokered the initiative in July 2022 – 57% of it to developing countries.

The Russian Navy controls the Black Sea, and ships can’t move there without its permission. The deal's end "means the withdrawal of guarantees for the safety of navigation, the curtailment of the maritime humanitarian corridor, the restoration of the regime of a temporarily dangerous area in the northwestern Black Sea," Russia's foreign ministry said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday he still had hope the deal could be resurrected. "Despite today's statement, I believe that Russian President Putin wants this humanitarian bridge to continue," Erdogan said, adding he will meet with Putin next month. Turkey controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus Straits.

The price of U.S. wheat futures rose 3.1% on the news.

“The Black Sea grain initiative has held the price of grain down from the peak it reached,” Britain’s ambassador to the U.N., Barbara Woodward, said earlier this month. “But at the moment it is being held hostage, frankly, by the Russians.”

A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said last week that diplomats were working “to remove hurdles affecting financial transactions through the Russian Agricultural Bank, a major concern expressed by the Russian Federation, and simultaneously allow for the continued flow of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.”

Peskov said Russia's decision to end the grain deal was unrelated to a Ukrainian sea drone strike early Monday on the Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea with the Russian mainland.