President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa calls on Putin to resume grain deal

At a meeting in the Kremlin concerning the war in Ukraine, President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa called on President of Russia Vladimir Putin to resume the Russia-Ukraine grain deal. The full transcript of the meeting is available on the Kremlin’s official website.

Ramphosa said that while African countries recognize Russia’s generosity in donating grain, their representatives had not come to Moscow seeking “gifts,” but to urge Putin to resume Russia’s participation in the grain deal and to keep Ukraine’s Black Sea ports open to global markets.

At a plenary address during the ongoing Russia-Africa summit, Putin said that Russia was prepared to donate 25,000–50,000 tons of grain to several African countries in the next three to four months. According to Putin, those countries would include Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea.

Ukraine previously exported around 33 million tons of food under the grain deal. The deal’s lapse has already caused a rise in grain prices. Independent Russian publication Agentstvo calculated that for the six African countries to which Putin promised free grain, a resumption of the grain deal would be more beneficial, since free supplies from Russia will cover only a small part of those countries’ needs.

The grain deal expired on July 17.