Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defense minister, called his Turkish counterpart to say Moscow was back on board. Erdogan, who has maintained close ties with Vladimir Putin since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine and helped hammer out the initial grain deal in July, said the Russian president told him he would first like to see “Africa’s poorest countries” benefit. The next grain shipments will go to Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan, countries particularly vulnerable without Ukrainian agricultural imports, the Turkish president added. Russia pulled out of the deal on Saturday, accusing Kyiv of targeting its naval fleet in the Black Sea after allegations of a Ukrainian drone attack on its warships. Moscow’s withdrawal threatened a rare example of wartime cooperation that allowed more than 9 million tons of Ukrainian agricultural products to reach international markets, helping avert a global food crisis. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said Kyiv had offered written guarantees that it would not use Ukraine’s grain export ports or the export corridor “to conduct military operations against Russia.” Konashenkov said Ukraine had agreed to abide by rules brokered by the UN and Turkey, which he said were “sufficient” to return to the deal. Ukraine did not immediately comment on what guarantees it gave Russia. Kyiv has complained that Russia continues to use its Black Sea fleet to launch airstrikes in Ukraine, including a series of devastating attacks on energy infrastructure in recent weeks – and has repeatedly denied using the grain corridor to carry out its own her blows. Amir Abdullah, the UN coordinator for the grain deal, said in a tweet that he was “grateful for the Turkish facilitation” and that he “welcomes the return of the Russian Federation to the implementation of the Black Sea Initiative to facilitate exports of food and fertilizers from Ukraine”. After Turkey’s announcement, wheat futures fell 6.4 percent to $8.45 a bushel, while corn fell 2.4 percent to $6.81 a bushel. “The best way to understand the concept of the Black Sea Wheat Initiative is to look at the market reaction after [the deal’s] stabilization,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, tweeted. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier on Wednesday that Russia had “security requests” after the weekend attack, but did not elaborate. Cavusoglu reportedly told a committee that Moscow also wanted to export more of its own agricultural products that were part of the deal. “Russian fertilizers and seeds are not included in the list of sanctions, but the ships that will transport them cannot dock, [insurance] no payments are made. Many countries’ ships are reluctant to carry these cargoes,” Cavusoglu said. The original grain deal was signed in July by the UN and Ankara to end a blockade on Russian grain, food and fertilizer exports through Ukrainian ports following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February. Ukraine is also seeking to lift Russia’s embargo on other goods, including steel, another key source of hard currency for Kyiv. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading suppliers of grain and other agricultural products. Food security experts have warned that shortages caused by the war will have serious consequences for poor countries already facing a crisis caused by the effects of climate change and the Covid-19 pandemic. Additional reporting by Emiko Terazono in London
