Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the results of his meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, New York, April 24, 2023

The meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just ended. It lasted over an hour. We considered the current issues on the UN agenda.

Antonio Guterres focused on the prospects for the further implementation of the Black Sea Initiative in the context of his own proposal, which was introduced and approved on July 22, 2022. As he said himself, this is a package that includes assistance for exporting Ukrainian grain from Ukrainian ports and an identical commitment to the Russian Federation in that it concerns the removal of all obstacles to exporting Russian grain, primarily wheat, and fertilisers, created by the Western countries (primarily the United States, the EU, and the UK).  

The Secretary-General described his efforts at promoting the Russian part of the deal as much as possible. So far, the progress has not been obvious. He expressed his considerations in a letter explaining the ideas on the further course of actions. This letter requires a thorough review. Thus far, we do not see the Western countries’ desire to carry out what is necessary for the successful implementation of the Secretary-General’s initiative on the package approach to exporting agriculture products from Ukraine and the Russian Federation. We will study his latest ideas now that we have them in black and white.