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The deal to export grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea will not work unless a UN agreement with Moscow to overcome obstacles to the export of Russian grain and fertilizers is implemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrovsaid. Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov is a Russian diplomat who has been foreign minister since 2004.

"If everything remains as it is, and obviously it will, then it will have to proceed from the fact that it (the deal) is no longer functioning," Lavrov said during a visit to Nairobi.

The agreement, concluded in July last year, requires the UN to help Russia overcome all obstacles to grain and fertilizer exports within three years. Lavrov said that this agreement "is not being implemented at all."

The UN-Russia agreement was reached at the same time as a deal allowing safe food and fertilizer exports from Ukraine across the Black Sea following Russia's invasion in February 2022, and this month Moscow reluctantly agreed to extend it for another two months, until July 17, but said more progress needed to be made. to protect their own interests.

According to Lavrov, less than 3% of the grain exported under the deal reached the poorest countries in the world.

Sergei Lavrov arrives in Kenya

After meeting with Kenyan Parliament Speaker Moses, Vetangula Lavrov said Kenya was interested in new agreements and developing cooperation with the Russian side, so the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg in July is of particular importance.

"We also talked about the development of ties between Russia and the African Union," the Russian foreign minister said. "We expect that these decisions, which are being prepared – Kenyan friends also place serious hopes on them – will contribute to the development of practical interaction and the development of our interaction in the international arena, where Africa is fully justifiably asserting its intentions to become a truly full-fledged center of the emerging multipolar world order," he said.

The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum are expected to take place in St. Petersburg from 26 to 29 July. The first such event took place from 22 to 24 October in Sochi, under the motto "For peace, safety and development".

Sergei Lavrov

Russia

UN

grain deal