Black Sea grain deal won't be extended: Russia

Russia says there will be be no extension of the United Nations-brokered Black Sea grain deal beyond May 18 unless a series of obstacles to the export of Russian grain and fertiliser are removed.

The Ukraine grain Black Sea export deal was brokered by the UN and Turkey in July last year to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by conflict disrupting exports from two of the world's leading grain suppliers.

"Without progress on solving five systemic problems... there is no need to talk about the further extension of the Black Sea initiative after May 18," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

"We note that, despite all the high-sounding statements about global food security and assistance to countries in need, the Black Sea Initiative both served and continues to serve exclusively commercial exports of Kyiv in the interests of Western countries," the ministry said.

To help persuade Russia to allow Ukraine to resume its Black Sea grain exports last year, a separate three-year agreement was also struck in July in which the UN agreed to help Russia with its food and fertiliser exports.

Russia said the two agreements were "interconnected parts of one 'package'", and scolded the UN Secretariat for what it said was a distortion of the facts.

The United States and its European allies have imposed tough sanctions on Russia over its February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Its food and fertiliser exports are not sanctioned but Russia says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance are a barrier to shipments.

The foreign ministry said Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) had to be reconnected to the SWIFT payment system that supplies of agricultural machinery and parts needed to be resumed and that restrictions on insurance and reinsurance needed to be lifted.

Other demands include access to ports, the resumption of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline that lets Russia pump the chemical to Ukraine's port, and the unblocking of assets and the accounts of Russian companies involved in food and fertiliser exports.

"The removal of obstacles to domestic agricultural exports was supposed to take place within the framework of the implementation of the Russia-UN Memorandum," the ministry said.

Russia said there had been a failure of the inspection regime of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.

"Currently, 28 vessels carrying more than one million tonnes of food are awaiting inspection in the territorial waters of Turkey," the foreign ministry said.

It accused UN staff in the Joint Co-ordination Centre of refusing to draw up an inspection schedule.

"In turn, an even more difficult situation has developed around the registration of bulk carriers," the ministry said, denying that Russia was responsible for any of the congestion and accusing Ukrainian port officials of accepting bribes to accelerate registration.

It comes as heavy fighting is continuing in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, both Russian and Ukrainian officials say.

Wagner Group mercenaries are engaging in "high-intensity fighting to drive the enemy from the central parts of Artemovsk city," Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, using the Soviet-era name for the city.

Regular Russian airborne troops are blocking routes into the city used by Ukrainian forces but Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin acknowledged that it was too soon to speak of a complete encirclement of the shattered city.

Ukrainian Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov said that Russian troops had entered the centre of Bakhmut.

He referred to heavy fighting and Russian attempts to encircle Ukrainian forces by taking the villages of Bohdanivka and Ivanivske, which lie to the west of Bakhmut.

with DPA