MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. The option of providing military escort to ships that carry food from Ukraine outside of the grain deal is dangerous and unrealistic, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on Friday.

"With respect to warships escorting some other ships, I think we have to go to the source of this information. We have not discussed these issues. I think that this option is dangerous and unrealizable," he said at a news conference, in comments on reports that Turkish warships could escort ships with Ukrainian grain.

The grain deal expired on July 17. Russia had agreed to extend the agreement to provide a shipping corridor across the Black Sea for ships carrying Ukrainian grain several times since it had been signed in July 2022, but said that the Russia-related provisions of the deal, which called for removing hurdles to Russian farm exports, had not been fulfilled. Moscow also said that, although the agreements were intended to direct food supplies to the poorest countries, most Ukrainian grain shipments went to wealthy Western countries. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was ready to return to the deal only when the Russia-related part of the agreement was fulfilled.