MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. Agreements on grain export are not linked with a possible resumption of talks between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainian side continues to commit hideous atrocities, Leonid Slutsky, leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and a member of the Russian delegation to the talks with Ukraine, said on Friday.
According to Slutsky, the agreements on grain export are no guarantee the Moscow and Kiev will resume peace talks. "Hideous atrocities are being committed, including against our prisoners of war. This is what must be changed, rather than talks on grain in Istanbul. I don’t rule out that they will ultimately have common sense but today they have none," the LDPR faction quoted him as saying on its Telegram channel.
"Today, our so to say partners, but, in other words, opponents in Kiev want to fight. It is unreasonably, it is incomprehensible, it is perversive from a normal point of view," said Slutsky, who also head the international committee of the Russian State Duma (lower parliament house).
"They are encouraged by the collective West," he noted. "They are set for antagonism. They continue to hold nationalist positions."
Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov said earlier on Friday that participants in the meeting on the grain problem in Turkey had basically supported Russia’s proposals and the work of a final document would soon be finished. He recalled that four-party consultations between the United Nations, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on the problem of unblocking Ukrainian ports for exporting agricultural products had been held in Istanbul onn July 13.
A source in the European External Action Service told journalists on Friday that an agreement between Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine on a naval corridor for exporting Ukrainian grain could be signed next week.