Ukraine claims that Russia has decreased grain exports.

On Tuesday, while Russia protested that it had been prohibited to export ammonia via a pipeline to Pivdennyi under the agreement, Ukraine charged that Russia had in fact excluded the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi from a treaty permitting secure Black Sea grain exports.

The “Black Sea Agreement,” which was negotiated in July of last year by the United Nations and Turkey and was extended this week for another two months, governs the shipment of food and fertiliser from the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi during times of war.

On Monday, the U.N. voiced worry over Pivdennyi’s lack of ship delivery since May 2.

Russian officials were accused of a “gross infringement” of the agreement, according to Ukraine’s deputy minister for renovations, Yuriy Vaskov. The Russian inspectors have reportedly refused to assess ships headed for Pivdennyi since April 29. All ships undergo inspection by a joint team of Ukrainian, Turkish, Russian, and U.N. inspectors.

From a throughput perspective, Pivdennyi is the largest port covered by the agreement. According to data from the restoration ministry, 26 ships are scheduled to arrive to pick up the 1.5 million metric tonnes of food that are being stored for export to 10 different nations.

A global food crisis that was made worse by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was addressed with the help of the “Black Sea grain” agreement. The agreement also covers the ammonia that, prior to the war, Russia piped to Pivdennyi for export.

Russia had threatened not to renew the “Black Sea Agreement” unless a number of conditions related to its own exports of food and fertiliser were satisfied. One of those demands is to restart the ammonia pipeline, which the UN has been attempting to mediate.

According to a source in the Ukrainian administration, if the “Black Sea grain agreement” were to be expanded to cover more Ukrainian ports and a wider range of goods, Kyiv could contemplate permitting Russian ammonia to transit across its borders for export.

According to Uralchem’s CEO, the pipeline through Ukraine will become much less significant as soon as an ammonia export port opens up close to the Black Sea. Uralchem is Russia’s largest producer of “potash” and “ammonium nitrate.”