Recently, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations Nebianjia said that Russia has sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General Guterres and will suspend participation in the Black Sea food security transportation agreement indefinitely. The reason is that Ukrainian drone and unmanned boats have carried out multiple attacks on the port of Sevastopol, Russia, making it impossible for Russia to continue to protect Ukrainian grain transport ships.
According to reports from Al Jazeera and other media, Ukraine dispatched drones and unmanned boats carried out suicide attacks on the port of Sevastopol on October 29. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that these unmanned combat equipment were destroyed and only caused damage to the individual Russian ship anchored in the port.
At the same time, Russia found after an investigation that these drones took off on grain transport ships in the food corridor security zone to attack. Obviously, Ukraine did not make reasonable use of safe channels, and even launched sneak attacks on Russia with grain ships as cover. This behavior is disgusting and undermines the food security transportation agreement.
Therefore, Russia has to withdraw from the group. For Russia, continuing to implement the agreement will only be passive on the battlefield, and Russia has no reason to protect Ukrainian civilian ships again. However, the outside world is still very worried, because many countries have experienced food crises this year. Russia and Ukraine are both major food exporters, so it is important to ensure smooth food exports.
In order to solve this problem, the United Nations has personally taken the lead. It was under the support of UN Secretary-General Guterres that Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement on food security transportation in the Black Sea. This agreement was originally a rare cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, but it has now been cut off.
Another important reason for Russia to suspend cooperation with Ukraine is that the food shipped out by Ukraine has not been shipped to developing countries , which is in urgent need of food. Russia said that most of Ukraine's grain transport ships transported food to developed countries, while those countries such as Somalia and Ethiopia and that are in the food crisis only received about 3% of them.
In other words, the food security transportation plan promoted by the United Nations has not actually played a role, and it is no longer necessary to continue. Regarding Russia's decision, Western countries immediately expressed "regret" and NATO urged Russia to restart the agreement, while accusing Russia of using food as a weapon.
, while Russia said tit-for-tat that Russia will provide 500,000 tons of food for free to the poorest countries in the world in the next four months. Russia has harvested 150 million tons of grain this year, with an export potential of more than 50 million tons. 500,000 tons of grain is a piece of cake for Russia.
Russia's actions are just to avoid being slandered by Western countries. After Russia made a decision to suspend cooperation with Ukraine, US President Biden immediately stated that Russia's move was "untolerable", and EU asked Russia to change its decision. Russia provides 500,000 tons of food for free, with the goal of letting the international community know who is the culprit of the food crisis.
In addition, Russia also requests UN Security Council to hold a meeting on October 31 to discuss the issue of Ukrainian drones attacking Russian ships. Ukraine has denied all criticisms of Russia, but it should be noted that it is not easy for Ukraine to deny this matter, because these drones and unmanned boats were shot down or sunk by Russia, and the departure location can be calculated based on their wreckage.
Russia asked the UN Security Council to intervene in the matter after obtaining conclusive evidence of the attack on Ukraine. With Western countries collectively supporting Ukraine, the UN Security Council should not condemn Ukraine's actions. But from this matter, we can see that the foundation of cooperation between Ukraine and Russia is very fragile.
Even with the painstaking efforts of the United Nations and the "international righteousness" to alleviate the food crisis, it will be difficult for the two countries to cooperate for a long time. Ukraine, in particular, does not want Russia to get a good reputation for helping other countries ease the food crisis and is not very interested in these cooperation. At present, the two countries are still in a tense confrontation, and both sides are replenishing their vitality and preparing to fight the two and the other in winter. Perhaps it will not be until both countries are exhausted that real cooperation and peace talks will come.
