Ukraine : The UN and Russia Make a Deal on the Side of the Black Sea Initiative : PassBlue / Tom McDermott

 PassBlue reported this week on the Curious UN-Russian Side Deal to Get Russian Food and Fertilizers to World Markets.  This is not the agreement known as the Black Sea Initiative signed on 22 July and brokered by Turkey and the UN and designed to allow export of Ukrainian grain.  The latter agreement was designed to allow ships carrying Ukrainian grain to pass through the Russian naval blockade of Ukraine's ports.  That agreement came into serious doubt less than 24 hours after it was signed when Russia bombarded Ukraine's main port, Odessa.

The separate agreement is a 3 year MoU between Russia and the UN seems apparently intended to ease Russian exports of food and fertilizers during current Western sanctions.  Russia is the world's major exporter of fertilizers, so in that sense the agreement seems important.  The curious part is that the sanctions in question specifically exempt Russian exports of food and fertilizers.  

Why then a special agreement?

As PassBlue reports: "For Russia, the deal could be a huge gain because it aims to remove all barriers, imagined or otherwise that companies in finance logistics and insurance circles may face when doing business with Russia, as they fear they will be fined and incur other black marks.  These industries have also been hit the hardest in Russia from Western sanctions."

Moreover, other parts of the agreement speak of how Russia can and should access UN procurement channels - something Russia has done for years.  "The MoU never says where and how the Russian goods will be exported and puts the onus on the UN to overcome a range of obstacles."

"It seems intentionally written to include any Russian vendor — rather than only food- and fertilizer-related — into the UN procurement system, thus trying to pre-empt further requests by Ukraine and its allies to stop buying Russian goods and services. In 2021, these totaled more than $282 million."

The MoU will apparently be administered on the UN's behalf by UNCTAD, while the Black Sea Initiative will be managed by OCHA which will establish a Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul.