Russia's obligations under the grain agreements in Istanbul do not prohibit it from continuing a special operation in Ukraine, destroying military infrastructure, the UN has confirmed this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday following a visit to the Republic of Congo.
"Our Western colleagues have already become skilled in the ability to present any news distorted, exclusively in the form to be used against Russia, which does not surprise me anymore. If we're talking about the episode <...> which took place in Odessa, there's nothing in the commitments that Russia undertook, including as part of the agreements signed in Istanbul on July 22nd, that prohibits us from continuing a special military operation by destroying military infrastructure and other military targets," Lavrov said. - "And representatives of the UN secretariat, by the way, if I understand correctly, yesterday confirmed exactly this reading of the signed documents."
The Russian foreign minister also pointed out that Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles (SCMs) after the Russian Armed Forces' strike on the military infrastructure of the Odessa seaport now pose no threat to Russia. "As for the targets hit by high-precision strikes, they are located in a separate part of the port of Odessa, in the so-called military part, and the targets were a combat boat of the Ukrainian Navy and an ammunition warehouse where the Harpoon anti-ship missiles were recently delivered. They were delivered in order to threaten the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Now these Harpoon missiles do not pose a threat to us," he said.
In addition, Lavrov stressed that there were no obstacles to the delivery of grain in accordance with the agreements signed in Istanbul. "And also objective experts confirmed what we said from the beginning that the grain terminal of the port of Odessa is at a considerable distance from the military unit, there are no obstacles to the delivery of grain in accordance with the signed agreements in Istanbul to customers, and we did not create them," the Russian foreign minister pointed out.
On the strike on the port of Odessa and the Istanbul agreements
Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, earlier told journalists that the Russian Armed Forces used high-precision missiles to attack the territory of a shipyard in Odessa, destroying a ship in its dock and a warehouse of Harpoon missiles supplied from the US. According to an official representative of the Russian defense ministry, the production facilities of the Ukrainian Navy's ship repair and modernization facility were put out of action.
A package of documents aimed at solving the problem of food and fertilizer supplies to world markets was signed in Istanbul on July 22. A memorandum between Russia and the UN records that the world organization is joining the effort to lift anti-Russian restrictions hindering exports of agricultural products and fertilizers. Another document outlines a mechanism for exporting grain from Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea ports. Agreements between Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations call for the creation of a quadripartite coordinating center, whose representatives will inspect vessels carrying grain to prevent arms smuggling and exclude provocations.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS