Ukraine war briefing: Black Sea deal will allow Russia to profit from grain markets, Lavrov says
www.theguardian.com
Wed, 26 Mar 2025 03:15:08 +0200
Russian foreign ministers comments come after Kyiv and Moscow agree to maritime ceasefire, despite Kremlin citing need for sanctions relief first.
What we know on day 1,127See all our Ukraine war coverageA Black Sea maritime security deal aims to bring Moscow back to predictable grain and fertiliser markets that would allow for profit and ensure global food security, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published late on Tuesday.
We want the grain and fertiliser market to be predictable, so that no one tries to ward us off from it, Lavrov told the Russian state Channel One television.
Not only because we want to make a legitimate profit in fair competition, but also because we are concerned about the food security situation in Africa and other countries of the Global South.Russia and Ukraine agreed to eliminate the use of force in the Black Sea after parallel talks with US negotiators in Saudi Arabia, though the Kremlin said a maritime ceasefire would start only if it received sanctions relief on agricultural exports.
Donald Trump said that the US was reviewing the Russian conditions after the Kremlin insisted it had negotiated concessions with the White House that would mark the first major recision of sanctions since the fullscale invasion of 2022.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the deals did not require sanctions relief to come into force which he said would weaken Ukraines position and would come into force immediately.
If Russia violated them he would ask Trump to impose additional sanctions on Moscow and provide more weapons for Ukraine, he said.
We have no faith in the Russians, but we will be constructive, he said.The Ukrainian president also said there had been no agreement on an unconditional ceasefire because the Russians didnt want it.
He said he believed as the negotiations continued people will not believe the Russians more and more with every day.Zelenskyy criticised Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, who had said in the runup to the talks that Russias staged referendums in the four Ukrainian regions it partially or completely occupies were legitimate and had demonstrated that the overwhelming majority wanted to be under Russian rule.
The Ukrainian president said Witkoffs comments are very much in line with the messages of the Kremlin, but he added that he hoped that over time the US negotiator and others in the White House would gradually come to see that the Russian leadership was insincere.Russias foreign ministry said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was a Russian facility and transferring control of it to Ukraine or any other country was impossible.
Russian forces seized the plant early in the invasion.
Donald Trump, during a phone conversation this month with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggested the US could help run and possibly own Ukraines nuclear power plants, including Zaporizhzhia.Estonias top diplomat said Russia has gained an upper hand in the ceasefire talks and suggested the US consider a time limit if there is no progress, ahead of a meeting with secretary of state Marco Rubio.
Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna and his counterparts from Latvia and Lithuania met jointly on Tuesday in Washington with Rubio as the Baltic nations lead concerns over the new US push on Russia and Ukraine.
Putin has now an upper hand in some ways, Tsahkna told AFP in an interview late Monday ahead of his talks with Rubio.
The question is now, how long is Trump actually going to give Putin to play the games he said.A Russian court sentenced on Tuesday a woman to two years jail for holding protest signs opposing President Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine conflict, the latest in a series of convictions targeting dissent.
Elena Abramova, a translator from the northwestern city of St Petersburg, publicly held up placards in 2023 that read A world without war, a Russia without Putin and Freedom for Navalny Freedom for all political prisoners, according to the citys court service.Ukraines SBU security service said on Tuesday it had detained a serviceman in the Sumy region it accused of helping Moscow attack Ukrainian troops fighting in Russias Kursk region by giving away their location.
While at the front, the mole was preparing coordinates for the aggressors missile and bomb attacks on the locations of Ukrainian troops, the SBU alleged on Telegram.
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