Just 3% of Deliveries Under Grain Deal Sent to Needy Countries: Putin

Russia and Ukraine signed a vital grain export agreement mediated by Turkey in Istanbul in July, with the deal designed to release supplies of agricultural commodities frozen as a result of the security crisis in Ukraine. In recent weeks, Moscow has expressed concerns about the implementation of the agreement.

Just a fraction of the Ukrainian grain being exported abroad through the Istanbul agreement is going to developing countries that need it, and something needs to be done to ameliorate the situation, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

"I spoke about this at the Eastern Economic Forum. Now we are hearing that some of our partners are questioning my comments on grain deliveries from Ukraine. But we record every move, there are no mistakes here," Putin said, speaking at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Friday.

According to Putin, of the 87 ships loaded with grain that left Ukrainian ports since the agreement stepped into force, 32 remained in Turkey. "This is absolutely normal, because Turkey is the host country of the entire process and certainly has the right to do so," he said.

At the same time, the president indicated that 30 ships went to European Union countries, seven to Egypt, three to Israel, three to South Africa, and only two to Yemen and Djibouti, which depend on assistance from the United Nations' World Food Program.

"This is only 60 tons, or 3% of the total," Putin stressed.

Putin instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry to take these figures into account in contacts with Russia's partners, including at the UN level.

"Of course, we cannot influence this process, how much food goes where, but in general we consider it correct to increase supplies specifically to the poorest countries," he said.

At the EFF on Wednesday, Putin accused the West of pressuring Moscow into a grain deal with Ukraine on the pretext of helping developing countries, but ending up shoring up their own supplies while leaving needy countries in the lurch.

"All this pressure that was exerted on us by our quasi-partners and our geopolitical opponents, it was based precisely on Russia's call to ensure the interests of the poorest economies, to prevent hunger in these countries," Putin said. "But it turned out that once again...we were rudely cheated and dumped. And not only us, but also the poorest countries, under the pretext of ensuring [their] interests."

Ukrainian officials challenged Putin's figures, claiming that 2/3 of its exported grain supplies went to the Global South, and saying that the grain export agreement reduced global wheat prices by 5 percent.

However, some Western media appeared to confirm the Russian president's estimates, with Spain's El Pais newspaper calculating that at least a third of the exported grain has been shipped to the EU.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chimed in on the dispute on Thursday, saying Putin was "right" to make the comments.

Also this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western countries of failing to live up to their promise under the grain deal to lift sanctions on Russian grain and fertilizers.

"...Our Western colleagues are not doing what we were promised by the UN general secretary, namely, they are not making a decision to remove sanctions that prevent free access to Russian grain and fertilizers to world markets," Lavrov said, speaking at a joint press conference with the foreign minister of Thailand on Tuesday.

During a visit to Russia in June, African Union President Macky Sall warned that Western sanctions on Russian foodstuffs and fertilizer threatened to undermine Africa's food security and to leave the continent without adequate access to these life-giving commodities.