Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of sabotaging the Black Sea grain deal by demanding bribes from ship owners to register new vessels and conduct inspections under an UN-backed deal to solve a worldwide food crisis.
Ukraine, which has blamed Moscow for agreement issues, did not respond to Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s statement. Moreover, Moscow did not immediately produce supporting documentation.
Russia and Ukraine claim the July UN-Turkey pact is in danger of collapse as Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia restrict Ukrainian grain imports.
Russia has frequently threatened not to renew the deal beyond May 18 unless the West lifts a series of payment, logistics, and insurance limitations that it argues are hurting its agricultural exports.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul, which supervises the arrangement, was having trouble registering and inspecting new vessels.
“Solely as a result of the actions of Ukrainian representatives, as well as U.N. representatives, who, apparently, do not want or cannot resist them,” she said.
Ukraine was “trying to exploit the ‘Black Sea initiative’ as much as possible, not refraining from abuses of the rules of procedure or demands for bribes from ship owners,” Zakharova said. “To maximize commercial profits.”
She said ship owners who refused to bribe Ukrainians waited more than a month for registration.
She added Ukrainian representatives “met with hostility” Russian attempts to add vessels delivering grain to African countries in need, stopping inspections for 27 outbound ships carrying 1.2 million tonnes.
“The calculation is simple – to launch a propaganda machine with the help of Westerners and the United Nations and again ‘play the food card’,” Zakharova said.
Russia and Ukraine are important producers of wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed, and sunflower oil. Russia dominates fertilizer sales.
Western nations sanctioned Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2017, which Moscow terms a “special military operation.”
Russia exports food and fertilizer without sanctions. However, Moscow wants financial, logistics, and insurance limitations eased to ease shipments.
