Last shipment from Odessa before the important agreement expires

According to the MarineTraffic website, the Turkish-flagged vessel left Odessa shortly after 8 am local time en route to Istanbul.

The agreement ends at midnight on Monday and Tuesday, Swedish time, according to Agence France-Presse.

The agreement on grain exports from Ukraine was negotiated with the help of Turkey and the United Nations last summer and allows Ukraine to export grain from three Ukrainian ports, Odessa, Yuzhny and Chornomorsk.

President of Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin He threatened not to extend the deal, which expires at midnight, because it “does not serve Russia’s interests in exporting agricultural products and fertilizers,” as he put it in an interview on Russian state television.

Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres He sent a letter to Putin last week in which he wrote that he wanted to work to remove obstacles to Russia’s export of fertilizers.

Türkiye’s president said on Friday Recep Tayyip Erdogan That Vladimir Putin agreed to extend the grain export agreement, but the Kremlin did not confirm this information.

The agreement is meant to be extended by 120 days at a time, but in March and May 2023 Russia only agreed to a 60-day extension.