UNITED NATIONS, September 24. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called upon the European Commission to buy Ukrainian grain rejected by the European Union members and re-direct it to African countries in need.
"Since the European Commission is wasting tens of billions of dollars on Ukraine <…>, it can buy the grain that Ukraine wants to sell and EU countries don’t want [to buy] for reasons of competitiveness, and send it to Africa," Lavrov told reporters at a news conference, held on Saturday to sum up the results of his work at the 78th UN General Assembly.
In his words, Ukrainian grain is "being supplied to European countries in abundance," but many of them don’t want to buy it, because "they have their own farmers and don’t want them to go bust due to competition."
Lavrov added that 260,000 metric tons of Russian fertilizers have been stranded in EU ports since 2022.
"But we are ready to give these fertilizers to African countries for free. It took six months to deliver the first batch of 20,000 tons to Malawi, and another three months to take another 30,000 tons to Kenya," he added. "We also have 34,000 tons for Nigeria, but have so far been unable to send it.".