Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on Thursday an agreement with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to supply flour to the countries most affected by the food crisis, the EFE agency reported, as quoted by Agerpres.

“We are developing Erdogan’s initiative for free delivery of flour milled by Turkish industry based on Russian grain to the countries that need it most,” Putin said during a video conference at the opening ceremony of Turkey’s Akkuyu nuclear power plant, built in cooperation with Russia. tipcat.

After Putin agreed last month to extend for just 60 days a deal that allows Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea, Putin has promised African countries free Russian grain if the UN-Turkey-brokered deal finally collapses after Russia blocked Ukrainian exports by sea by. the beginning of the war against Ukraine, actions with further Western sanctions against Russia.

The Russian president stressed in a statement on Thursday that these sanctions, which limit the export of Russian fertilizers, particularly affect developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

This week he received a letter from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres asking him to agree to the extension of the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. Similar letters were also sent to Ukraine and Turkey.

For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who had a conversation with Antonio Guterres, said he was making “honest efforts” to help Russian exports, but the head of diplomacy in Moscow was pessimistic about continuing the deal, further signaling that, through sanctions, dozens of Russian ships with a total of about 200,000 tons of chemical fertilizers are blocked in European ports.

Russia has repeatedly accused the fact that the agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain did not include the component of the agreement that provides for the simplification of the export of Russian grain and fertilizers, indirectly complicated by the effect of Western financial sanctions against Russia after its aggression against Ukraine. esteemed.