Kyiv condemns Russian proposal to extend grain deal for 60 days

Ukraine has said that Russia’s plan to extend the deal to export grain during the war for an extra 60 days goes against what the two countries agreed to. After talking with the UN, a Russian delegation said on Monday that Moscow was ready to extend the grain export deal with Ukraine for another 60 days.

In a statement, the UN said that it “notes” what Russia said about the extension and that it still supports the deal made in July as “part of the global response to the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.”

Oleksandr Kubrakov, who is in charge of infrastructure in Ukraine, said that a 60-day extension goes against the agreements that Turkey and the UN signed, but he did not reject the idea. “The grain agreement calls for an extension of at least 120 days, so Russia’s position that the deal should be extended for only 60 days goes against the document that Turkey and the UN signed,” Kubrakov said on Twitter.

“We are waiting for the official position of the United Nations and Turkey as the initiative’s backers,” he said.

In July, the UN and Turkey helped the Ukraine and Russia reach a deal that lets Ukraine, one of the world’s most important food producers, ship food and fertiliser from three of its Black Sea ports.

The 120-day deal, which helped ease the pain of rising food prices around the world, was renewed in November of last year. This extension ends on Saturday, and there was talk of another 120-day extension.

Moscow is upset that a separate deal to allow exports of Russian food and fertiliser, which is used all over the world, has only led to a small amount of fertiliser leaving Russia and none of its grain.

At the UN offices in Geneva, Switzerland, Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and Martin Griffiths, head of the UN humanitarian agency, hosted a team led by Sergey Vershinin, deputy foreign minister of Russia.