🇷🇺🇮🇳 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Minister of External Affairs of India Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar hold talks on the margins of the 18th East Asia Summit.

📍 Jakarta, September 6

#RussiaIndia #DruzhbaDosti

🤝 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary General of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (#IORA) Dr. Salman Al Farisi hold talks on the margins of the 18th East Asia Summit.

📍 Jakarta, September 6

🇷🇺🇮🇩 Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Foreign Minister of Indonesia Retno Marsudi hold talks on the margins of the 18th East Asia Summit.

📍 Jakarta, September 6

#RussiaIndonesia

⚡️ Foreign Ministry statement on the grain deal

Concluded in Istanbul on July 22, 2022, the Black Sea Initiative to export Ukrainian food products (suspended on July 17) has been receiving a lot of attention. Against this backdrop, the Foreign Ministry considers that it must once again set forth Russia’s position in this regard, in detail.

👉 The global price of grain is steadily declining, having decreased in the range of 4 to 5 percent in August to reach levels 25 to 40 percent below its peak in March 2022, contradicting the alarmist statements by the West and the UN Secretariat on surging food prices and the imminent threat of hunger.

Overall, there is no global food shortage in physical terms, while there are challenges in terms of distributing, not producing, food.

👉 Ukraine’s role as the world’s breadbasket has also been blown out of proportion, once again at the initiative of the West and the United Nations. In fact, this country accounts for a relatively small portion of global wheat exports at about 5 percent, and this share has become even smaller recently due to objective factors, considering, among other things, the decrease in the planted acreage as a result of soil contamination by radioactive and chemical toxins following the use of depleted uranium munitions supplied by the West.

☝️If the West and Kiev really need the Black Sea corridor, it is high time for them to take concrete steps to lift the illegal unilateral sanctions imposed on Russian entities which are involved in producing and exporting agricultural products and fertilisers.

❗️Russia reaffirms its position of principle as set forth by President Vladimir Putin on September 4. We stand ready to explore opportunities for reviving the Black Sea Initiative. However, this can happen only once all the requirements are met to lift sanctions imposed on the Russian companies dealing with agricultural products and fertilisers.

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🇷🇺 Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov takes part in the 18th East Asia Summit #EAS

📍 🇮🇩Jakarta, September 7

#Opinion by Maria Zakharova

💬 The Foreign Ministry has released a statement regarding the food deal and the supply of grain and fertiliser.

Let's, for the umpteenth time, use facts and figures to take a look at the situation concerning food security after the Black Sea Initiative was discontinued.

1. The grain deal did not help the poorest countries address hunger. Out of 32.8 million tonnes of food, just a trifle - less than 3 percent - were sent to the countries in need.
2. After the deal came to an end, grain prices continued to fall. In August, they fell by 4-5 percent.
3. The grain exported as part of the deal mainly went toward enriching Ukrainian animal feed producers. It was primarily intended for livestock and was shipped to Europe rather than Africa.
4. Ukraine is no longer the world's breadbasket. The country's share of global grain exports is only 5 percent and continues to shrink.
5. Ukraine's arable land is shrinking as well, partly due to contamination with radiation and toxins from depleted uranium munitions that Kiev has been using since the spring.
6. Europe is not helping Ukraine export grain. Since May, there has been a ban on grain shipments to EU countries bordering on Ukraine. This situation is likely to continue into the winter.

Now, let's discuss the UN Secretariat and the West being unwilling to act on their obligations to Russia under the deal.
1. To make the deal work, it is necessary to reconnect Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT. Instead, what we are witnessing are endless discussions about creating intermediary mechanisms through subsidiary enterprises and partner banks (without implementation guarantees). Rosselkhozbank accounts are being closed altogether.
2. There has been no progress on insuring Russian ships. We’ve seen nothing but promises to take care of things “later.” A special insurance platform mechanism has not been created.
3. The unlocking of assets is only to be discussed after the humiliating process of companies acknowledging their “sanctioned status.” Again, without any guarantees.
4. The UN remains silent with regard to resuming the Toglatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline’s operation, which could provide fertiliser to tens of millions of customers.
5. We invited the UN to join in a discussion, but Rebeca Grynspan who is in charge of the deal on behalf of the UN, is unwilling to come to Moscow or even send reports about her activities.


Finally, let's talk about how Russia is actually addressing the issue of hunger in the world, without any “deals.”
1. Russia has already sent or will soon send:
• 20,000 tonnes of fertiliser to Malawi;
• 34,000 tonnes of fertiliser to Kenya;
• 23,000 tonnes of fertiliser to Zimbabwe;
• 34,000 tonnes of fertiliser to Nigeria;
• 55,000 tonnes of fertiliser to Sri Lanka;
• 200,000 tonnes of wheat to Somalia, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, and Eritrea.
2. A project is being developed jointly with Ankara and Doha to deliver 1 million tonnes of grain (!) to Türkiye where it will be processed and shipped free of charge (!) to the poorest countries.

It turns out that while Europe was exporting animal feed grain from Ukraine across the Black Sea as part of the deal, efforts were made to block and to create loss-making circumstances for Russian agriculture. The UN failed to resolve the situation.

#Announcement

🇧🇩 On September 7-8, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will make a working visit to the People's Republic of #Bangladesh.

During his visit, he will be received by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, and hold talks with his counterpart, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, AK Abdul Momen.

This visit marks the first visit by the Russian Foreign Minister to Bangladesh. Sergey Lavrov and AK Abdul Momen had previously met in Moscow in 2019 and in Tashkent on the sidelines of the international conference Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity, Challenges, and Opportunities, in 2021.

During the meetings, the parties will discuss the state and prospects for Russian-Bangladeshi relations, as well as current items on the regional and international agendas.

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#RussiaBangladesh