Turkey’s Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said an agreement would be signed next week. He said Ankara will ensure the safety of shipments in transit and the parties will jointly check grain cargoes in ports. But UN chief Antonio Guterres said more work was needed before a deal was signed.
“Its task will be to carry out general monitoring and coordination of safe navigation in the Black Sea,” Zelenskiy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said on Twitter.Apart from being major global wheat suppliers, Russia is also a large fertilizer exporter and Ukraine a significant producer of corn and sunflower oil.
Ukrainian officials said there had been sustained Russian shelling across Donetsk province, which Moscow aims to capture to complete its seizure of the industrialised Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Russia also struck 28 settlements in the Mykolaiv region bordering the Black Sea, killing at least five civilians, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office.Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine caused Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two.