“The Black Sea agreements are no longer in effect.”
This was announced by Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Monday.
This was a blunt statement to suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative that emerged out of intense negotiations in the hours after Russian forces entered Ukraine in February 2022.
The initiative went into effect on July 22, last year, after Russian and Ukrainian officials signed it in Istanbul in the presence of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Guterres called the initiative a “beacon of hope” for two reasons. First, it is remarkable to have an agreement of this kind between belligerents in a war. Second, Russia and Ukraine
