RT reported that Russia has begun sending the first free grain shipments to struggling African countries under the deal announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year. Last week, Somalia became the first country to receive 25,000 tons of grain.
Russia's grain promise
The shipment was part of an agreement announced by the Russian president at the Russia- Africa Summit in St Petersburg in July. At the conference, Mr. Putin promised to provide free food aid to a number of African countries after the unsuccessful United Nations-mediated Black Sea grain deal.
In his commitment, the Russian leader stated that Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea would each receive up to 50,000 tons of grain from Russia and would be completely free.
Russian Agricultural Minister Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow expects to provide a total of 200,000 tons of free grains to Africa by the end of the year.
Free fertilizers
Russia has also provided free shipments of fertilizer to several other countries. Last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow, together with the United Nations World Food Program, had sent 20,000 tons of fertilizer to Malawi, 34,000 tons to Kenya and was waiting for approval of an additional 23,000 tons to Zimbabwe, 34,000 tons to Nigeria and 55,000 tons to Sri Lanka.
Russia's move to send free food aid to Africa comes after it unilaterally withdrew from the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative earlier this year.
The deal was initially mediated by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022, to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grains - such as wheat, corn and sunflower products - to the world market, mainly to poorer countries, such as countries in Africa.
In exchange for allowing the transportation of Ukrainian grains, Russia was promised that Western sanctions would be lifted on Moscow's agricultural exports.
However, a year later, Russia withdrew from the deal on the grounds that it could still not bring any grains or fertilizers to the world market and the West had completely ignored the end of the deal.
In addition, Moscow noted that more than 70% of the shipments under the initiative have not yet reached poor countries but have instead been transported to rich countries.
Russia accuses the West of hoarding agricultural products
In addition to blocking Russian agricultural exports, Russia has accused Western countries of storing Russian fertilizer at EU ports.
According to a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry in October, more than 96,000 tons of free humanitarian aid fertilizers for poor African countries are being held at ports in Latvia, Estonia, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Moscow noted that despite saying that no sanctions were applied to Russian agricultural exports, Brussels had blocked even free, pure and humane delivery of Russian goods.
The revival of the Black Sea Initiative
Meanwhile, the United Nations has tried to restore the grain deal with Ukraine but to date there have been no results. Russian Ambassador to Turkey Aleksey Erkhov explained that efforts to restart the initiative were unsuccessful as the West continued to impose sanctions on Russian food and fertilizer.
