A ship with Russian fertilizers for Malawi will leave the Netherlands in the next two days. This was announced at a briefing on Monday, November 28, by the official representative of the UN Secretary General Stephane Dujarric.
“We expect the ship to depart within the next 48 hours,” Dujarric said.
As expected, the ship will first arrive from the Netherlands to Mozambique, and then from there the fertilizer will be sent to Malawi by land.
Earlier, on November 11, the Netherlands allowed the shipment to Malawi of 20 thousand tons of Russian fertilizers stuck in the port of Rotterdam due to sanctions.
On November 24, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on the European Union (EU) to influence Latvia, which continues to block the shipment of Russian mineral fertilizers to the poorest countries. The diplomat recalled that this was Russia’s humanitarian action to help those in need, and stressed that Latvia, as well as Estonia, Belgium and the Netherlands, have been keeping Russian products in their ports for three months.
Prior to that, on November 16, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin told Izvestia that it was extremely important for Russia that one of the parts of the Istanbul agreements regarding the export of grain from Ukraine was accompanied by progress in another part of the agreement, affecting the export of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers. .
On November 12, Vershinin announced that up to 280 thousand tons of mineral fertilizers from Russia were under arrest in European ports. According to him, Moscow offered to donate the arrested fertilizers to the poorest countries, primarily African ones. He pointed out that so far almost nothing has been done on this issue.
Dmitry Polyansky, First Deputy Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, told Izvestia on November 7 that the UN had promised Russia that it would soon be able to achieve the removal of restrictions on the export of Russian food under the grain deal.
At the end of October, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow was ready to transfer fertilizers stuck in EU ports for free to the poorest countries, but the West did not give them away. Putin was outraged by the decision to lift restrictions and bans on Russian fertilizers in Europe, and then issue a clarification that they were lifted only for EU countries, thus limiting supplies to countries in need.
The food deal was concluded on July 22 in Istanbul. Then Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the UN Secretary General signed a memorandum on facilitating the supply of Russian agricultural products and fertilizers to world markets. At the same time, the Ukrainian delegation signed an agreement with Turkey and the UN on the export of grain.
