MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/. Grain from Ukraine should first of all be exported to developing countries, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, during their phone call.
"When discussing problems of global food security, it was stressed that the grain exported from the Black Sea ports should first of all go to developing countries," the Kremlin press service said after a telephone conversation between the two leaders.
"For these purposes, it is extremely important to see to it that the European Commission puts no obstacles on the path of Russian agricultural products and fertilizer supplies to the markets of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America," the Kremlin stressed.
Addressing a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum on September 8, Putin noted that nearly all the grain, which was exported from Ukraine, went to European Union countries and only two out of 87 ships with grain headed to the poorest countries.
He also touched upon this topic at a meeting with permanent members of the Russian Security Council on Friday. He also said that Russia is against discriminatory restrictions on exports of its fertilizers to developing countries via European ports. Moreover, in his words, Russia is ready to supply these products free of charge. He welcomed the European Commission’s decision to unblock exports of Russian fertilizers but, according to a European Commission’s explanations of August 10, only European Union countries can buy Russian fertilizers, whereas exports of Russian and Belarusian fertilizers to Asian, African and Latin American countries via European ports are banned. The president noted that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fertilizers have piled up in several European ports and ordered the foreign ministry to look at organizing free supplies of fertilizers to developing countries.