Russian envoy says no breakthrough on Black Sea grain deal

Russia's envoy to the United Nations in Geneva said "no real progress" had been achieved in resolving issues raised by Moscow over the Black Sea grain deal, which is set to expire next month.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said the deal will not be renewed beyond 18 May unless the West removes obstacles to Russian grain and fertiliser exports.

"As of today, we regret to say that no real progress was reached in resolving this problem," Russian envoy Gennady Gatilov told reporters at the Russian permanent mission in Geneva on Wednesday.

The Black Sea grain initiative, brokered between Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey last July, aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia's invasion to be safely exported from three Ukrainian ports.

Although Russia's agricultural exports have not been explicitly targeted by Western restrictions, Moscow says sanctions on its payments, logistics and insurance industries have created a barrier to the export of its grains and fertilisers.

"The Ukrainian part of the deal is working well," Gatilov said. "But the Russian part of this deal is not working and these two parts should be equal. This is not the case."

One of Russia's main demands in negotiations is the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payments system.

Gatilov said the bank should be fully reconnected to the system rather than subjected to "case-by-case" decisions on the lender's ability to carry out transactions.

Reuters cited a Russian source as saying the United States gave JPMorgan Chase & Co permission to process payments for Russian Agricultural Bank, but that the arrangement was no substitute for reconnecting the bank to SWIFT.