MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Ukraine will do its best to continue exporting its grain, despite Russia’s withdrawal from the grain deal, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said on Monday.

"Even without Russia, it is necessary to spare no effort so that we could use this Black Sea corridor," he said in an interview with African journalists, fragments of which were posted by his spokesman, Sergey Nikiforov, on his Facebook account (Facebook is banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).

According to Zelensky, shipowners have allegedly reassured him that they are ready to continue to ship grain from Ukrainian ports "if Ukraine lets them out and Turkey lets them through."

"I have instructed our foreign ministry after the official notification from Russia to prepare our official messages to the United Nations and Turkey so that they tell me as the Ukrainian president that they are ready to continue our initiative," he added.

A package of documents geared to resolve the problem of food and fertilizer supplies on global markets was signed on July 22, 2022 in Istanbul and extended several times since then before ultimately expiring on July 17. Russia refused to extend it again because the part of the deal envisaging the removal of obstacles for Russian agricultural exports has never been implemented. Apart from that, Moscow has repeatedly stressed that the bulk of grain that was meant to be supplied to the poorest counties was shipped to Western countries. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is ready to resurrect the deal but only after its part related to obligations to Moscow is fulfilled.