Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday hailed “a significant diplomatic result for our country and the whole world” after Russia rejoined a deal to allow Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea.
“Implementation of the grain export initiative continues,” he said in his daily evening address following the revival of the Turkish and UN-brokered agreement struck between Kyiv and Moscow in July.
Moscow had said on Saturday that it was temporarily pulling out of the grain deal, accusing Ukraine of misusing the safe shipping corridor to launch a drone assault on its Black Sea fleet.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had now received “sufficient” guarantees from Kyiv that it would not use the maritime corridor to carry out attacks.
The call for guarantees showed “the failure of the Russian aggression”, Zelensky said in his address.
After eight months of war “the Kremlin is demanding security guarantees from Ukraine”, he said.
“This shows both the failure of the Russian aggression and how strong we are when we remain united”.