The UN has repeatedly called for Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to resume operations, which would allow grain exports and reduce the risk of looming food shortages in poorer countries. Russia rejects this, claiming that Western sanctions, not the war in Ukraine, are responsible for the lack of grain on world markets.
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday that Moscow uses food as a weapon. According to him, there are 20 million tons of grain in Ukraine, which can not be exported from the country due to the war.
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According to the newspaper, US officials are investigating the possibility of exporting Ukrainian grain via Belarus to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, according to the daily. As an incentive for Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, they are considering a six-month exemption from sanctions on potassium carbonate, or potash, which is used as a fertilizer or detergent.
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The Belarusian regime has been the target of US and European Union sanctions since the year before, when the first measures were launched in response to rigged elections and the violent repression of opposition protests. Another round of sanctions followed in connection with the migration crisis on the border of the countries of the European Union and Belarus and also due to the participation of Belarus in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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The redirection of Ukrainian grain exports to the railways can replace only about ten percent of pre-war exports, experts say, according to WSJ. However, the UN promises from the plan that allowing the export of Belarusian potash will lead to an increase in agricultural production elsewhere in the world.
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