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Moscow questions Black Sea grain deal, says 700,000 Ukrainian children now in Russia

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Russia says it has no incentive to maintain a deal allowing vital grain to be exported from Ukraine through the Black Sea, and one of its politicians has claimed Moscow has now taken 700,000 Ukrainian children out of conflict zones.

The Black Sea deal between Russia and Ukraine was brokered by the United Nations and Türkiye in July 2022.

It aimed to prevent a global food crisis by allowing Ukrainian grain trapped by Russia’s invasion to be safely exported from Black Sea ports.

But last week, the UN said it was concerned no new ships had been registered under the deal since June 26 — despite applications being made by 29 vessels.

Now Russia’s envoy to the United Nations in Geneva says there are no grounds to maintain the “status quo” of the Black Sea grain deal, which is set to expire on July 18.

In a wideranging interview, envoy Gennady Gatilov told the Russian news outlet Izvestia that the implementation of Russia’s conditions for the extensions of the agreement were “stalling”.

Those conditions include, among others, the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank, Rosselkhozbank, to the SWIFT banking payment system.

“Russia has repeatedly extended the deal in the hope of positive changes,” Mr Gatilov told Izvestia.

“However, what we are seeing now does not give us grounds to agree to maintaining the status quo.”

Russia has taken thousands of children from Ukraine

Meanwhile, the head of the international committee in Russia’s upper house, Grigory Karasin, claims Russia had brought thousands of children from conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory.

“In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine,” Mr Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

Moscow says its program of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is designed to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.

However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.

Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counteroffensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.

In July 2022, the United States estimated that Russia “forcibly deported” 260,000 children, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Integration of Occupied Territories, says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.

In April, more than 30 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine after a long operation to bring them home.

Russia aims for new nuclear arms treaty with US

Mr Gatilov also said he hopes “common sense” will prevail in the United States and there will not be the need to consider the option to denounce the New Start nuclear weapons treaty, the last remaining US-Russia arms control treaty that caps the countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

President Vladimir Putin has suspended Russia’s participation in the pact, although both sides have pledged to continue to respect its limits and there has since been “direct contact” between Moscow and Washington on the issue.

The Russian envoy to the UN reiterated Moscow’s position that Russia would only return to a nuclear reduction treaty if Washington abandons its “destructive course of inflicting a strategic defeat” on Russia, but added Russia could be open to talks on a new pact.

“I wish we could instead start discussing a treaty that could replace [the current treaty] after February 2026,” he said.

The New Start Treaty, signed in 2010, is due to expire in 2026.

Separately, Gatilov told Izvestia Russia is open to a diplomatic solution to the Ukrainian crisis, but the outlook is dim now as Kyiv and the West continue to bet on the use of military force.

Reuters/ABC

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