Russia Pulled Out of Black Sea Grain Initiative

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine has passed the 500-day mark. Russia’s campaign of brutality inflicted on the Ukrainian people has included its wanton launching of missiles and drones that have caused widespread civilian deaths and injuries as well as destruction of vital civilian infrastructure. Russia’s forces have tortured civilians in detention and abducted Ukrainian children.

Putin’s Russia underlined its sheer cruelty by announcing on July 17^th its decision to terminate the regime’s participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that the “decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere.”

Russia is once again weaponizing food to get its own way

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was a rare diplomatic achievement during the war, brokered and supported by the United Nations and Turkey, which protected the safe shipment of grain from Ukrainian ports and lifted Russia’s blockade for that purpose. This Initiative had ensured the safe passage of over thirty-two million metric tons of food commodities from Ukrainian ports. Over the last year since the Black Sea Grain Initiative was put into effect, it helped to stabilize global food markets, relieve hunger in the world’s neediest regions, and lower food prices for all.

Russia claimed it terminated its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative because it was dissatisfied with how a separate arrangement it had reached with the UN was being carried out. This arrangement, set forth in a Memorandum of Understanding that Russia and the UN entered in parallel with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, involved the shipment of Russian fertilizer and grains. Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said, “As soon as the Russian part is fulfilled, the Russian side will immediately return to the implementation of that deal.”

Russia is once again weaponizing food to get its own way.

Secretary General Guterres noted in a letter that he sent to President Putin containing a new proposal to keep the Black Sea Grain Initiative alive that “Russian grain trade has reached high export volumes and fertilizer markets are stabilizing with Russian exports nearing full recovery, as stated by the Russian Union of Grain Exporters and Russian Fertilizer Producers Association.” The letter set forth specific “breakthroughs” with Western governments and the private sector that the UN claims to have delivered, leading “to the progressive normalization of trading conditions since July 2022, including declining freight and insurance rates.” The UN has also been able to find ways to address Russia’s concerns about blocked access to payment mechanisms, particularly through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system.

Russia has violated the UN Charter, committed war crimes, and abused its veto power

But Putin’s Russia dug in its heels. Its answer to all those people suffering from hunger was ‘Let them eat cake.’ Russia sabotaged a program that was successfully advancing global food security and global food price stability, which Russia had undermined with its brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s disregard for human suffering is not limited to the effects of the war in Ukraine that it started. Last week Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have kept open a vital border crossing into Syria to allow humanitarian assistance to continue reaching many desperate people in Syria.

In her remarks to the Security Council following Russia’s callous veto, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said:

“What we have just witnessed – what the world has just witnessed – was an act of utter cruelty.

The majority of this Council stood together to extend this humanitarian lifeline to save lives. But one permanent Member State blocked this compromise resolution. And I just have to ask, why? Russia has not lived up to its responsibility as a permanent member of this Council. And its beneath the dignity of this body.

This is a gross affront to the values we all hold dear, to our efforts to advance peace and security, and, above all, to the Syrian people who have endured so much needless suffering and violence at the hands of the Assad regime.”

Time and time again, Russia has violated the UN Charter, committed war crimes, and abused its veto power. Russia has proven itself unworthy of having a permanent seat on the Security Council.

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