After Reuters had reported a proposal originating with Ukraine, and forwarded to Russia by Türkiye, for a ceasefire with regard to Black Sea shipping of Ukraine and Russia, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has rejected the proposal in its present unclear state.
Asked by a media representative whether Türkiye had proposed a ceasefire on the Black Sea, Zakharova indicated Russia’s respect for Türkiye as a neighboring power, and confirmed that Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had spoken of such a ceasefire. But she otherwise replied: “Russia has yet to receive a formal submission from Türkiye setting out specific terms for this initiative. If this framework is unilateral, as in 2022 and 2023, better known as the so-called Black Sea initiative, in line with which Moscow suspended military actions in the Black Sea … then reviving this framework would be ill-advised. This [2023] agreement was contingent on the other side fulfilling its part of the deal, which never happened.”
Zakharova continued, “You will recall that we accepted the moratorium in exchange for ensuring that Russia’s agricultural products could access the global market. However, the West acted in bad faith by using the humanitarian corridor we created to carry out terrorist attacks against Russian civilian and military sites, while Russian agricultural products continued to face sanctions. Ultimately, this led to the termination of the Black Sea initiative.”
Zakharova concluded, “Today, drones belonging to the Ukrainian Armed Forces carry out regular and outrageous acts of terror in the Black Sea by targeting civilian ships of coastal countries. This happens several times a month…. At the same time, we see nothing that could improve the situation, nor any reason to use half-measures that do nothing but offer the Kiev regime a temporary respite.”
