WASHINGTON, October 30. /TASS/. US authorities regret Russia’s decision to suspend its participation in the grain deal and call on all sides to support this initiative, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday.
"The United States regrets Russia’s suspension of its participation in the operations of the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative. We urge all parties to keep this essential, life-saving Initiative functioning. <...> We urge the Government of Russia to resume its participation in the Initiative, fully comply with the arrangement, and work to ensure that people around the world continue to be able to receive the benefits facilitated by the Initiative," his written statement reads.
According to Blinken, "the Black Sea Grain Initiative has already moved more than 9 million metric tons of food and brought prices down around the world, which has been critically important for low-and middle-income countries." "It has been a success and must continue," the US top diplomat said, adding that, in his opinion, any attempt to disrupt these critically important exports is "essentially a statement that people and families around the world should pay more for food or go hungry."
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the Kiev regime, guided by British experts, had carried out a terrorist attack on the warships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels in Sevastopol, using nine drones and seven marine autonomous surface vehicles which were all eliminated. The ministry pointed out that the attacked ships were involved in ensuring security of the grain corridor as part of the international initiative on exporting agricultural products from Ukrainian ports.
On Saturday, Russian Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev said that Russia, with Turkey’s participation, was ready to supply free of charge up to 500,000 tons of grain to the poorest countries within the next four months.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that in response to a request by the heads of the Donbass republics he had made a decision to carry out a special military operation in order to protect people "who have been suffering from abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years." Following this, the US and its allies announced sweeping sanctions against Russia and stepped up arms deliveries to Kiev.