True Left

Wednesday's discussions in Istanbul ended with a tentative agreement about how to transport the grain across the Black Sea. Stockpiles stuck in Ukraine have caused global prices to rise sharply, making food less affordable.

Turkey's defence minister says Russia and Ukraine have made progress in their efforts to get urgently needed grain exports out of Ukraine. He said talks will continue next week, in the hope of a final deal on releasing 20 million tonnes. 

After months of global grain shortages, negotiators in Turkey say they've reached a deal to resume grain exports from Ukraine. After hours of negotiations in Istanbul, Turkey's Defence Minister announced Ukraine and Russia had reached an agreement to allow grain shipments through the Black Sea. Turkey and the United Nations helped broker the deal, expected to be signed next week. The deal would end a months-long impasse that's left more than 20 million tons of much-needed grain stuck in Ukrainian ports -- unable to leave because of fighting in the country.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said more work was still needed to finalize the deal, but hailed the breakthrough as a 'critical step forward.'

"This is not a couple of ships of grain that we're talking about... This is a completely, incredibly enormous amount of wheat."

Russia will not hinder the export of Ukrainian grain in exchange for the lifting of sanctions related to the supply of Russian grain.

Is that like “we won’t attack that building” and then they attack it. I would not believe one word out of Putins mouth

Putin's word on anything is worthless.

Don't trust Russian at all, they all lie!

In exchange for ending the Russian blockade on Ukraine’s grain exports, the Kremlin received assurances that Western sanctions did not apply to fertilizer, opening the way to export sales.

The deal was aimed at avoiding food shortages—if not full-on famine—in Africa, the Arab world, and across much of Asia.

But this is the first illusion: For months, Moscow’s blockade has been designed, among other things, to produce pain in the Global South and raise pressure on the West to force Ukraine into an unsatisfactory peace with Russia.
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The July 22 agreements took the UN and Turkey weeks to negotiate, but there was only one problem: Moscow had no reason (and probably no intention) to honor the deal. Its blockade was working. Pressure on the West was rising, and Moscow was paying no political price for the food shortage it was creating.

It was not even clear why Moscow felt the need to go through the charade of signing the agreement. Whatever the case, its missile strike on Saturday ended that charade quickly—and with it, the illusion that the food crisis had been averted.
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When it comes to the food crisis, Adm. James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander, has described how a humanitarian naval corridor could be set up almost entirely within the territorial waters of NATO littoral states in the Black Sea.

But the White House has ruled out a US-led naval convoy to ensure grain shipments. If the Biden administration is to redeem its inaction, now is the time to seriously reconsider this decision.

It is a coincidence that the Black Sea agreements were signed the same day Sullivan made his comments to explain why the White House wouldn’t send long-range artillery to Ukraine. But perhaps it is no coincidence that Moscow—seeing once more how easily it can deter Washington by waving its nuclear wand—decided to immediately break the grain-export agreement and underscore its malign intention to provoke a food crisis in the Global South.