Archived: https://archive.md/4c5WD

Moscow may extend the agreement when obstacles to Russia’s own agricultural exports are removed, the Russian president has said

Excerpt:

Russia is considering pausing its participation in the UN-facilitated grain deal until its food and fertilizer exports are unblocked, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. None of the promises made to Moscow under the agreement have been fulfilled as of yet, he said, adding that the deal has been a "one-way street case." [u/Netweasel, in answer to your recent question about Russia's fertilizer exports]

The goals of the memorandum included allowing Russia’s major agricultural lender, Rosslekhozbank, back onto the SWIFT payments system, enabling deliveries of spare parts for agriculture machinery, restarting the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, sorting out insurance and logistics, as well as "unfreezing" Russian assets.

According to Putin, none of those aims have been achieved. "Nothing – and I want to underscore it – nothing has been done. That was a one-sided game all along. Not a single goal linked to the interests of the Russian Federation was met," he said, adding that Moscow had repeatedly extended the deal in good faith despite this fact.

The deal was originally touted as a way of avoiding a food crisis by steering grain toward poor nations. However, according to Moscow, only a tiny percentage of the grain exported from Ukraine as part of the agreement was shipped to such nations, while the bulk of it ended up in Europe.

"Out of all the foodstuffs and grain in particular shipped away from the Ukrainian territory, only slightly more than 3% was delivered to the world’s poorest nations," the Russian president said on Thursday. Now, many European nations have started forgoing Ukrainian grain, he told the Russian media, adding that it was the West and not Russia that "started discriminating against Ukrainian grain."

Edit to add: The last part about the West "discriminating against Ukraininan grain" is confirmed by this May 2023 EU Commission press release