Putin reports ‘progress’ in talks with Turkey on exporting food from Ukraine

Russia said that “progress” is being made with Turkey on efforts to export foodstuffs from Ukraine through the Black Sea but that “not all problems have yet been resolved.”

The U.S. and allies have criticized Russia for maintaining a blockade of Ukraine’s seaports that is contributing to at least 40 million more people facing poverty and hunger, worsening an already dire world food crisis. 

During a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “for granting a Turkish platform for talks on food problems, on the export of grain via the Black Sea.” 

“We made progress with your mediation. True, not all problems have yet been resolved, but there is progress and that is good enough,” Putin said.

Turkey, a NATO member, is working to position itself as an intermediary between Russia on one side and Ukraine, NATO and global democracies supporting Kyiv’s defense against Moscow’s war of aggression. 

At least 50 million tons of global food supplies are trapped in temporary silos or on ships in Ukraine, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ukraine has mined the seas around the ports, particularly Odesa, to prevent Russian warships from attacking the city. 

The U.S. and other allies have also criticized Russia for restricting the export of fertilizer, which has inflated prices and contributed to challenges facing farmers to produce food. 

The U.S. and NATO allies praise Turkey as a critical ally in being the front of the alliance on the Black Sea and for providing Ukraine with Bayraktar TB2 drones that have proved decisive in Ukrainian attacks on Russian forces. They further say Turkey’s ties with Russia provide a necessary channel to maintain diplomatic communication.

But Turkey’s close ties with authoritarian governments like Russia and Iran have made it a complicated ally. Erdogan’s meeting with Putin and Iranian officials in Tehran largely focused on the conflict in Syria, where Turkey seeks to eliminate all Kurdish military groups, which it views as terrorist organizations, including those backed by the U.S. coalition in the fight against ISIS.

Still, United Nations officials, which have taken the lead on pushing for a breakthrough on sea lanes to move grain, have encouraged international diplomacy. 

Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, has traveled to Moscow in recent days to meet with senior officials there, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Tuesday. 

Haq added that Guterres is open to traveling to Istanbul for talks but did not elaborate on the progress of the talks, saying, “I think the information we’re putting out shows that things are going on and that itself is a welcome sign. What the results of it is, we’ll have to see.”

The spokesman also said that Guterres spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, discussing “ongoing negotiations aiming at exporting Ukrainian food products through the Black Sea without impediments.”

The U.N.-led effort to export grain has the backing of Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov offered support for the U.N. and Turkey’s role in mediation in remarks to the Atlantic Council on Tuesday, but criticized Russia as untrustworthy.

“[Russia] is interested in destroying Ukraine completely. … Their assurances are not worth the paper they are written on,” he said