The United Nations (U.N) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that he is “intense contact” with Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, the U.S., and the E.U. in an effort to restore Ukrainian grain exports as a global food crisis worsens.
Addressing a food security meeting at the U.N. hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on May 18, Guterres appealed to Russia to allow “the safe and secure export of grain stored in Ukrainian ports.”
But while the question of withdrawal of export restrictions for Russian potash was indeed discussed with the U.N. Secretary General, it was not in exchange for Ukrainian grain, Russian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Vasiliy Nebenzya told reporters in Moscow, as cited by Russia’s Tass.
A number of media outlets reported that Guterres held negotiations on access to Ukrainian grain in exchange for withdrawal of export restrictions for Russian and Belarusian potash.
Nebenzya, as cited by the Tass report, confirmed that the U.N. Secretary General discussed the export of Russian potash to the global market with Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov, because the global market, especially the agricultural states, is in desperate need of fertilizers. But he said the issue of fertilizers trade is not being discussed as an exchange for export of grain.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on May 17, as cited by a Reuters report, said Russian fertilizer producers were trying to fulfill international contracts despite Western sanctions against them. Russia and Belarus together account for some 40% of global exports of potash.
Ukraine used to export most of its goods through its main ports on the Black and Azov Seas, but since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, it has had to resort to exporting by train or via its small Danube River ports.
Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly one-third of global wheat supplies. Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil, and rapeseed oil.
According to a U.N. food agency official on May 6, cited by a Reuters report, nearly 25 million mt of grains were stuck in Ukraine.
But Peskov, as cited by the report, said Ukraine’s ports were heavily mined, and reminded that Russian President Vladimir Putin told the U.N. Secretary General during recent talks in Moscow removing the mines would be a very complex operation.