Moscow separated the shenanigans around the grain agreement with Ukraine, and Ukraine’s alleged use of the shipment corridor for military purposes, from any question about getting grain to needy countries. First, the Deputy Foreign MInister Mikhail Bogdanov said today that if they could no longer comply with the pact as it is being carried out, Russia would still continue to support African countries with grain.
Then Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced, according to RT, that Russia will supply from their own stocks any and all grain that Ukraine fails to deliver to needy countries, should the grain deal be sabotaged. “We can guarantee the Russian side’s readiness to compensate for the missing [grain export] volumes from its own stocks.” He added that this was not a problem, especially since Ukraine was exporting only a tiny portion of agricultural products to poor nations, while “not-so-poor nations located in Europe got the rest.”
