As promised by President Vladimir Putin in July, Russia’s agriculture minister announced on Friday that Moscow had started sending free grain shipments to six African nations, up to 200,000 metric tons in total.
Dmitry Patrushev stated in a Telegram statement that ships bound for Somalia and Burkina Faso had already departed Russian ports and that more cargo was on its way to Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Mali, and the Central African Republic.
At a summit with African leaders in July, just after Moscow withdrew from an agreement that had allowed Ukraine to ship grain from its Black Sea ports despite the conflict with Russia, Putin had promised to give free food to the six countries.
The agreement, dubbed the Black Sea Grain Initiative, had assisted in bringing down prices on the world market. However, Putin contended that it was not delivering supplies to the nations that needed them the most.
Putin claims that Russia exported almost 60 million metric tons of grain last year. The pledges of free grain were referred to as “a handful of donations” by UN chief Antonio Guterres.
Following its withdrawal from the agreement, Russia has bombarded Ukrainian ports and grain storage facilities on multiple occasions; according to Kyiv, hundreds of thousands of tons of cereals have been destroyed.
However, Ukraine announced on Friday that it had successfully shipped 4.4 million metric tons of cargo, including 3.2 million metric tons of grain, through a newly built shipping channel that it had created in August.
