Ukraine's Foreign Minister Calls on EU to Urgently Expand Ways for Grain Exports from Ukraine

The European Union should urgently expand all available routes for Ukrainian grain exports, and any restrictions on grain transportation are unacceptable.

"Under the current circumstances, it is necessary to open all doors instead of keeping some of them closed," Dmytro Kuleba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said at a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council on 20 July.

According to Kuleba, while Russia is destroying the Black Sea Grain Initiative, striking at Ukrainian ports and trying to make money from rising food prices, Ukraine and the EU should make every effort to facilitate food exports from Ukraine, in particular by maximising the capacity of alternative transport corridors, the Solidarity Roads.

The Foreign Minister has stressed that all alternative routes for exporting Ukrainian grain should now be operating at full capacity and expanding, and that statements about any restrictions are unacceptable.

He has outlined Ukraine's concrete proposals to increase the capacity of transport corridors, including a call to jointly develop the Danube cluster, as well as the Adriatic and Baltic transport corridors.

The day before, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki threatened not to open the border with Ukraine for grain products after 15 September.

Following the failure of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna criticised the Polish authorities' threats to close the border to Ukrainian grain.