Russia has returned as a party to the UN Black Sea Grain Initiative on the 2nd of November. After Russia’s return, from 3rd of November to the 8th, only 8 loaded vessels were cleared in 6 days, according to data from initiative’s website. Just before Russia’s return, this number was 37 on 1st of November and even 48 on 31st of October.
“There are currently 88 vessels waiting to move into Ukrainian ports plus 18 loaded vessels waiting for inspection in Turkish territorial waters,” Joint Coordination Center of the Initiative said.
Ukrainian Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuriy Vaskov commented on the inspection process in an interview with Reuters. He attributed the slowness of the process to Russia’s reluctance in terms of number of inspection teams. He complains that the number of inspection teams are not enough. He said, in order to speed up the inspection process, Ukraine has offered to increase the number of inspection teams, but Russia did not respond to this request. But when Russia was out, UN-Turkey and Ukraine representatives increased the number of inspection teams and could inspect many times more ships than before.
He also believes that searching loaded vessels are a waste of time, because there is actually no sense and therefore no risk of carrying weapons outside from Ukraine. Hence he suggests only inspecting inbound vessels sailing from Bosporus to Ukraine.
On the other hand, starting from 2nd of November, insurance companies were refusing insuring ships due to Russian threats. If Russia were not to return the initiative, no charterers would dare to sail for Ukraine without insurance and without assurance of safety in the war area.
Author’s Comment:
As a result, Russia’s return to the initiative employed although slow but at least stable grain flow from Ukraine to the world markets.
