United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday it was unlikely the Black Sea grain deal would be expanded in the near term to include more Ukrainian ports or reduce inspection times.

Kyiv has called for an expansion of the deal with Moscow which was mediated by the United Nations and Turkey and allows Ukraine, a major global grain exporter, to ship food products from three of its Black Sea ports despite Russia’s invasion.

“I don’t see that happening in the next, near term,” the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told Reuters in an interview in the Ukrainian capital.

“I think it would be great if it could be expanded, the more grain that gets out into the world, the better clearly from our point of view, from the world’s point of view. But I don’t think that’s immediately likely.”

Griffiths travelled to Ukraine this week, visiting the southern cities of Mykolaiv and recently liberated Kherson as Ukraine grapples with winter power outages caused by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.

The official, who said he was not in Ukraine to mediate and that he was strictly there to review the humanitarian aid program, said on Nov. 30 that a deal was “close” to agreeing a resumption of Russian ammonia exports via Ukraine.

Ammonia, which is used to make fertilizer, would be pumped through an existing pipeline to the Black Sea. The pipeline was shut down when Russia invaded this year.

On Thursday, Griffiths said work on that agreement was still under way and that he did not know when it would go through.

“We continue to… obviously want it because … fertilizer at the moment is almost more important than grain in terms of export to the global south,” he said. “So we’re still working at it. I don’t know when it will go through.”

Russian and Ukrainian representatives have discussed the possibility of linking a prisoner swap that would release a large number of prisoners on both side to the resumption of ammonia exports.

Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, voiced optimism earlier on Thursday that there would be a breakthrough in negotiations.

At a news conference earlier on Thursday with Ukraine’s prime minister, Griffiths said international humanitarian aid agencies had reached just under 14 million people with assistance since the beginning of the war.

A deal aimed at easing global food shortages by facilitating Ukraine’s agricultural exports from its southern Black Sea ports was extended for 120 days on Thursday, though Moscow said its own demands were yet to be fully addressed.

The agreement, initially reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine, a major producer of grains and oilseeds.

“I welcome the agreement by all parties to continue the Black Sea grain initiative to facilitate the safe navigation of export of grain, foodstuffs and fertilisers from Ukraine,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

Guterres said the UN was also “fully committed to removing the remaining obstacles to exporting food and fertilisers from the Russian Federation” – a part of the deal Moscow sees as critical.

Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed the extension of the Black Sea grain deal for 120 days starting from Nov. 18, without any changes to the current one.

The export of Russian ammonia via a pipeline to the Black Sea has not yet been agreed as part of the renewal, two sources familiar with discussions told Reuters. But Russia would continue efforts to resume those exports, one of the sources added. Ammonia is an important ingredient in fertiliser.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in September he would only back the idea of reopening Russian ammonia exports through Ukraine if Moscow handed back prisoners of war, an idea the Kremlin quickly rejected.

“The renewal of the Black Sea grain initiative is good news for global food security and for the developing world,” Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said on Twitter, calling it a “beacon of hope”.

“Solving the fertiliser crunch must come next,” she added.

The 120-day extension was less than the one-year sought by both the United Nations and Ukraine. Russia said earlier this week that the current duration period of the deal seems “justified.”.

Global food price crisis
A drop in shipments from Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February has played a role in this year’s global food price crisis but there have also been other important drivers including the COVID-19 pandemic and continued climate shocks such as droughts in both Argentina and the United States.

Since July, some 11.1 million tonnes of agricultural products have been shipped under the grain deal, including 4.5 million tonnes of corn and 3.2 million tonnes of wheat.

Wheat prices in Chicago fell following the news that the agreement would be extended. The benchmark contract was down 2% and corn was down 1.3%.

“This is bearish for the market because it removes remaining doubts and we have something clear for the coming four months,” one French trader said.

“However, the fact that it is only for four months instead of the one year Ukraine had been asking for means that uncertainty will resume in four months, with people wondering whether Russia will sign an extension or not.”

Both Ukraine and Russia are major global grain exporters. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter and a major supplier of fertilisers to global markets.

Since July, Moscow has repeatedly said that its shipments of grain and fertilisers, though not directly targeted by Western sanctions, are constrained because the sanctions make it harder for exporters to process payments or to obtain vessels and insurance.

Moscow presumed that the Russian concerns related to easier conditions for its exports would be fully taken into account in coming months, its foreign ministry said.

“We took note of the UN Secretariat’s intensified efforts to implement its commitments in this regard and the information provided to us on its interim results on the removal of obstacles to the supply of Russian fertilisers and foodstuffs,” the ministry said.

“All these issues should be resolved within the 120 days for which the ‘package deal’ is extended.”

Russia suspended participation in the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal after what it said was a Ukrainian drone attack on vessels in the Bay of Sevastopol in the early hours of Saturday. What do we know so far?

WHAT HAPPENED?

Russia said 16 air and maritime drones attacked civilian and Black Sea Fleet vessels in the Bay of Sevastopol in Crimea at 0420 Kyiv time on Saturday.

Russia said all nine of the air drones were destroyed. Four of the seven maritime drones were destroyed on the outer perimeter of the bay, but three more made it inside before they were destroyed, Russia said. Russia reported minor damage to the minesweeper Ivan Golubets, the ministry said.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield accounts. Unverified footage on social media showed what appeared to be maritime drones speeding across the water towards a Russian battleship while bullets were fired at the drone.

WHO CARRIED OUT THE ATTACK?

Russia’s defense ministry said the attack was carried out by Ukraine’s 73rd Marine Special Operations Center under the guidance and leadership of British navy specialists in the town of Ochakiv on the Black Sea coast. It said that personnel from the same British navy unit, which it did not name, had blown up the Nord Stream pipelines last month. Britain denied the claim.

“To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” a spokesperson for Britain’s ministry of defense said.

“This latest invented story says more about the arguments going on inside the Russian Government than it does about the West.” Ukraine has neither denied nor confirmed that it carried out the drone attack on Sevastopol and has instead suggested that Russia carried out the attack on itself so that it could suspend participation in the grain deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Russia had carried out “fictitious terrorist attacks on its own facilities”.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine has provided evidence for their claims.

WHERE DID THE DRONES COME FROM?

Russia says it has recovered the wreckage of some of the maritime drones. It said it had investigated the memory of the Canadian-made navigation modules installed on the drones. The maritime drones, it said, were launched from the coast near Odesa and had moved along the grain corridor security zone before heading into the Bay of Sevastopol, the largest city on the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The defense ministry said one of the maritime drones appeared to have started from within the security zone of the grain corridor itself. “This may indicate the preliminary launch of this device from aboard one of the civilian vessels chartered by Kyiv or its Western patrons for the export of agricultural products from the seaports of Ukraine,” the defense ministry said.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GRAIN DEAL?

Russia has been careful not to completely walk away from the deal.

“The Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the ‘Black Sea initiative’ and suspends its implementation from today on indefinite period,” the Russian foreign ministry said on Oct. 29.

Talks on extending a July deal that resumed Ukraine Black Sea grain and fertilizer exports are not making much progress because Russian concerns are not being taken into proper account, Russia’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva said on Thursday.

Senior United Nations officials are negotiating with Russia to extend and expand the July 22 deal that could expire next month if an agreement is not reached.

“I wouldn’t say that much has been achieved as a result of the latest consultations. The dialogue is continuing,” Gennady Gatilov told reporters.

He reiterated Moscow’s stance that Western sanctions were hamstringing its own exports of grain and fertilizer, even to poor countries that need the supplies.

“There is no point in continuing an agreement, one part of which may come out as dead on arrival. So, of course, the Russian… authorities will be very seriously considering the future of the extension of this grain deal,” he said.

Gatilov told Reuters last week that Moscow has submitted concerns to the United Nations about the agreement on Black Sea grain exports and was prepared to reject renewing the deal.

The agreement creating a protected sea transit corridor was designed to alleviate global food shortages, with Ukraine’s customers including some of the world’s poorest countries.

The early focus was on moving ships which had been stuck in Ukrainian ports for months, most of which were laden with corn and booked by developed countries.

The bulk of last year’s wheat crop in Ukraine, which is harvested earlier than corn, had already been shipped when Russian troops entered the country.

Developing countries such as Somalia and Eritrea rely heavily on imports of wheat from both Russia and Ukraine.

In a briefing for Geneva reporters, Gatilov played down the idea that Russia would use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict even though the Kremlin has repeatedly raised the prospect of doing just that.

“We will never do this, at least, we will not be the country who initiate this, so it’s clear,” he said.

Gatilov said Moscow had told the International Committee of the Red Cross that it would cooperate on arranging visits to Ukrainian prisoners of war.

“But you must imagine that we have more than 6,000 Ukrainian prisoners and sometimes it’s not possible to organize all visits. Ukrainians have less. And this is not the issue of number of visits. The issue is the quality of visit and the result of this visit,” he said.

He also dismissed allegations that Russian forces or their allies were forcibly deporting Ukrainian children.

“We are not trying to – as some mass media are trying to put it – kidnap Ukrainian children. This is not our goal. This is simply an attempt to help children that need really care, that need support,” he said.

Ukraine said it had dispatched its biggest convoy of grain vessels under a U.N.-brokered deal so far after 13 ships set sail from its ports on Sunday carrying 282,500 tonnes of agricultural products to foreign markets.

The cargo bound for eight countries was loaded at the Black Sea ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi. The ports had been completely blockaded by Russia’s invasion until a July 22 deal that was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

Eighty-six ships have since set sail from Ukrainian ports under the deal, carrying 2 million tonnes of agricultural products to 19 countries, the Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement on Facebook.

The deal was struck after Ukraine’s access to its main export route via the Black Sea was cut when Russia invaded and blockaded Ukraine’s ports, prompting a surge in global food prices and fears of shortages in Africa and the Middle East.

Ukraine hopes to export 60 million tonnes of grain in eight to nine months, presidential economic adviser Oleh Ustenko said in July, cautioning that those exports could take up to 24 months if ports do not function properly.

A total of 33 cargo ships carrying around 719,549 tonnes of foodstuffs have left Ukraine under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to unblock Ukrainian sea ports, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.

 

The Joint Coordination Centre in Turkey that monitors implementation of the agreement put the total amount of grain and foodstuffs exported from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports since the deal was reached at 721,449 tonnes.

 

Ukraine’s grain exports slumped after Russia invaded the country on Feb. 24 and blockaded its Black Sea ports, driving up global food prices and prompting fears of shortages in Africa and the Middle East.

 

Three Black Sea ports were unblocked under the deal signed on July 22 by Moscow and Kyiv.

 

In addition to the vessels that have already left Ukraine, the agriculture ministry said a further 18 were now loading or waiting for permission to leave Ukrainian ports.

 

The ministry said Ukrainian grain exports could reach 4 million tonnes in August, compared with 3 million tonnes in July.

 

In a separate statement, the ministry said exports of key Ukrainian agricultural commodities had fallen by almost half since the start of the Russian invasion compared to the same period in 2021.

Ukraine asked Lebanon’s top prosecutor on Wednesday to reopen a probe into a ship Kyiv says was carrying stolen grain that remains docked in Lebanon pending a seizure order.

Ukraine says the Syrian-flagged ship, in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, is carrying some 10,000 tonnes of flour and barley plundered by Russia following its February invasion.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Lebanon, Ihor Ostash, told a news conference at the embassy near Beirut that the request to investigate further was based on new evidence gathered by a Ukrainian judge and handed over to Lebanon on Monday.

The Lebanese prosecutor, Ghassan Oueidat, lifted a first seizure order on the Laodicea ship he had issued last week after finding no criminal offence committed. But it remains unable to sail until at least Thursday due to another order from a judge in Tripoli.

Moscow has previously denied stealing grain. Russia’s Embassy in Lebanon said it had no information on the cargo.

An official from the company that owns the cargo has also denied it was stolen and said the ship would sail to nearby Syria should it be allowed to leave.

Ukrainian authorities say the Laodicea travelled to a port in Russian-occupied Crimea closed to international shipping and that it took on cargo there before sailing to Lebanon.

Ostash added that a ship carrying 26,000 tons of corn, the first carrying Ukrainian grain to leave its Black Sea ports with cargo for international markets since Russia’s invasion, would arrive in Lebanon within four to five days.

He said Ukraine remained commited to supporting Lebanon with grain shipments as Lebanon deals with shortages of basic goods including wheat amid a three-year financial collapse.

Ukraine’s navy confirmed on Wednesday that work had started at three Ukrainian Black Sea ports aimed at preparing for the resumption of grain exports.

“In connection with the signing of the agreement on the unblocking (by Russia) of Ukrainian ports for the export of grain, work has been resumed in the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdeny,” the navy said on Facebook.

“The departure and arrival of ships to seaports will be carried out by forming a caravan that will accompany the lead ship.”