(Reuters) – Almost nothing has been done to address Russia’s concerns over the Black Sea grain deal, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, the latest in a series of downbeat comments by top Moscow officials about the pact that enabled Ukraine to resume exports.
Russia has repeatedly said it will not renew the deal beyond May 18 unless the West agrees to lift a host of restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance which it says are hindering its own agricultural exports.
“Here, practically nothing has been done,” Lavrov told reporters in Havana during an official visit. Footage of the news conference was broadcast by the Russian foreign ministry.
Inspections of ships carrying Ukrainian grain from the Black Sea resumed on Wednesday under the grain deal, which was brokered by the United Nations last July, five months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lavrov will meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York on Monday, Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by David Ljunggren and Grant McCool)
