The UN secretary general expressed regret on Monday over Russia's decision to pull out of the Black Sea grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export tens of millions of tons of grains over the past year.
"Today's decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere," Antonio Guterres told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
Russia refused to renew the grain deal beyond July 17, with the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying: "Unfortunately, the part relating to Russia in this Black Sea agreement has not been implemented so far."
Russia was seeking the removal of obstacles to its fertilizer exports in order to agree to another extension of the grain deal including the inclusion of its state-owned Russian Agricultural Bank in the SWIFT international payment system.
A year ago, Türkiye, the UN, Russia, and Ukraine signed an agreement in Istanbul to resume grain exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports which had been paused after the Russia-Ukraine war began that February.
The deal has been renewed several times since then, and it was extended for another two months on May 18.
Moscow also withdrew Russian security guarantees of navigation in the northwestern part of the Black Sea.
The deal ensured the safe passage of over 32 million metric tons of food commodities from Ukrainian ports, according to the UN.
The World Food Program shipped more than 725,000 tons to support humanitarian operations-relieving hunger in some of the hardest-hit corners of the world, including Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa and Yemen.
Guterres said: "The Black Sea Initiative -- together with the Memorandum of Understanding on facilitating exports of Russian food products and fertilizers -- have been a lifeline for global food security and a beacon of hope in a troubled world."
"At a time when the production and availability of food is being disrupted by conflict, climate change, energy prices and more, these agreements have helped to reduce food prices by over 23 per cent since March last year."
He warned that hundreds of millions of people facing hunger will pay the price.
Guterres also quoted the letter he had sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin which read: "Russian grain trade has reached high export volumes and fertilizer markets are stabilizing with Russian exports nearing full recovery as stated by the Russian Union of Grain Exporters and Russian Fertilizer Producers Association."
He said that the UN has helped Russia secure the issuance of U.S. General License 6B and 6C, which are important in light of the extraterritorial nature of U.S. sanctions in addition to two UK General Licenses on finance and trade in food and fertilizers.
"We have built a bespoke payments mechanism for the Russian Agricultural Bank through JP Morgan outside of SWIFT," Guterres said.
He said that the UN also worked closely with the key Russian fertilizer groups to unblock assets amounting to over 70% of the frozen assets.
"The United Nations recently brokered a concrete proposal to enable a subsidiary of the Russian Agricultural Bank to regain access to SWIFT with the European Commission," he said.
"I am deeply disappointed that my proposal went unheeded," he added.
Guterres also thanked Türkiye for its efforts to keep the deal alive.
