Ukraine, Russia sign deal to help ease world’s food crisis

Russia and Ukraine signed a landmark deal on Friday to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports for grain exports, raising hopes that an international food crisis aggravated by the Russian invasion can be eased.

The accord crowned two months of talks brokered by the United Nations and Turkey aimed at what U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called a “package” that would both restore Ukrainian grain exports while easing Russian grain and fertilizer shipments despite tough Western sanctions on Moscow.

Guterres said the accord opens the way to significant volumes of commercial food exports from three key Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny, and the U.N. would set up a coordination centre to monitor implementation of the deal.

But fighting raged on unabated in Ukraine’s east and, underlining deep-seated enmity and mistrust driving the worst conflict in Europe since World War Two, Russian and Ukrainian representatives declined to sit at the same table at the ceremony, and the display of the two countries’ flags was adjusted so that they were no longer next to one other.

“In case of provocations, (there will be) an immediate military response” by Ukraine, Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted.
Russia and Ukraine, both among the world’s top exporters of food, sent their defence and infrastructure ministers respectively to Istanbul for the signing ceremony, also attended by Guterres and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
ISTANBUL/KYIV, July 22 (Reuters)