While the Black Sea Grain Initiative received an extension for 120 days, “Russia still has tools to artificially limit its capabilities,” said the Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kubrakov.
As he wrote, “77 vessels are waiting for inspection in Turkey, the ports of Great Odesa are using up to 50% of their capacity, the cost of grain is increasing with each new blackmail from Russia.”
He further added that there is experience to make 40 inspections per day, but now, due to the position of Russia, there are 5 times less inspections per day.
In October, the grain initiative allowed us to export 4.2 mln tonnes of grain, while in November we will not be able to export even 3 mln tonnes. At the same time, technically, we can reach 6 mln tonnes per month
According to O. Kubrakov, artificial delay leads to losses for farmers and ship owners. Moreover, the most vulnerable people and the countries on the verge of starvation are affected. In addition, one day of downtime costs at least 30 thsd UDS. Now ships are waiting for inspection from 2 to 5 weeks.
Strategically, we should achieve not only speeding up of the inspections in the Bosphorus, but also joining the Mykolaiv ports to the initiative and prolonging the agreement for at least a year. Regarding joining the ports of Mykolaiv, we have officially appealed to the UN and Turkey with a proposal to consider changes to the initiative
the minister concluded.
In the meantime, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey said on November 25, that Moscow sends its representatives to more ship inspections in Istanbul per day than mandated under the Black Sea grain deal, rejecting an earlier Ukrainian accusation that Russia is slowing down the process.
