Ukraine: Zelenskiy calls for extension to grain deal

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the visiting US Ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday that the Black Sea grain export deal that unblocked three major Ukrainian ports must be extended.

The deal, agreed in July under the mediation of the United Nations and Turkey, lifted a blockade that Russia imposed on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports after its invasion on February 24th.

The initiative expires on November 19th and appeared under threat last month when Moscow briefly suspended its participation in the deal before rejoining again.

“We maintain the line that the initiative must continue regardless of whether the Russian Federation is willing,” Zelenskiy told the ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, during talks in Kyiv.

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He added on the Telegram messaging app: “Ukraine is ready to remain the guarantor of world food security.”

Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister told Reuters on Tuesday that Kyiv wants the grain export deal expanded to include more ports and goods, and hopes a decision to extend the agreement for at least a year will be taken next week.

Mr Zelenskiy yesterday told world leaders they will not be able to tackle the climate crisis unless Russia’s invasion of his country ends.

“There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” he said in a video address at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday. “The Russian war has brought about an energy crisis that has forced dozens of countries to resume coal-fired power generation in order to lower energy prices for their people, to lower prices that are shockingly rising due to deliberate Russian actions.”

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers, has used his country’s dominance in supplying gas to Europe to step up pressure on EU countries and others over the war.

Zelenskiy did not name individual countries but told the summit: “There are still many for whom climate change is just rhetoric or marketing, not real action. They are the ones who hamper the implementation of climate goals; they are the ones who in their offices make fun of those who fight to save life on the planet ... They are the ones who start wars of aggression when the planet cannot afford a single gunshot, because it needs global joint action.”

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Meanwhile, amid reports by the Washington Post that the US has asked Kyiv to signal it is open to negotiations in order to placate allies in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America worried about a protracted war, Ukraine has doubled down on its terms for peace.

Ukraine has said it will only begin negotiations once Russia’s troops have left all of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine that Russia occupied in 2014. Without this, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Radio Svoboda on Tuesday, any deal would be a temporary truce that Russia would use to rearm and attempt to occupy Ukraine again.

Podolyak asserted in the interview that the Washington Post may be obtaining its information from pro-Russian politicians, describing the reports as part of “the information program of the Russian Federation”. – Reuters/Guardian