The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Giorgos Herapetritis, proposed an “alternative route” for the export of grain from Ukraine: the goods could be transported by rail from Romania and Bulgaria to the ports of Alexandroupolis and Thessaloniki, Le Monde reports, News reports. .ro.

Herapetrit would make such a proposal during an informal meeting of the EU Council on Foreign Affairs, which symbolically took place on Monday in Kyiv.

But this is not the only proposal for alternative corridors that would allow Ukrainian food exports, given that traditional transport routes through the Black Sea are no longer operational due to the threat from Russia. Thus, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania said on Tuesday X that the ports of his country will be open for Ukrainian grain. In September, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovich also suggested the possibility of his country becoming a transit zone for Ukrainian goods.

After meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on September 4, Vladimir Putin said he would not return to the UN-signed deal that has been in place for a year on the Black Sea, allowing safe supplies of Ukrainian grain, which is crucial to global food security. .

This agreement, concluded in the summer of 2022 under the auspices of Turkey, allowed Ukraine to export grain (about 33 million tons) through safe corridors in the Black Sea. Moscow withdrew from the deal on July 17 and has no intention of rejoining it, at least until its demands are met, including reconnection to the Swift international payment system.

Determined to export grain without Moscow’s consent, Ukraine managed in late summer to allow several ships through a new sea corridor established as close as possible to the coasts of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey without any reaction from Russia. a military man who vowed to attack any merchant vessel that entered the Black Sea without his permission.