Grain export 'impossible' after Russia suspends deal: Ukraine

Kyiv [Ukraine], October 30 (ANI): Kyiv's Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov on Sunday said that it has become "impossible" for full tankers to leave port after Russia announced to suspend its participation in the United Nations-brokered grain export deal after drone attacks on the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
"(A) bulk carrier loaded with 40 tons of grain was supposed to leave the Ukraine port today. These foodstuffs were intended for Ethiopians, that is on the verge of famine. But due to the blockage of the 'grain corridor' by Russia, the export is impossible," he tweeted.
Russia is blocking grain that would feed more than 7 million people on a "false pretext," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
"By suspending its participation in the grain deal on a false pretext of explosions 220 kilometres away from the grain corridor, Russia blocks 2 million tons of grain on 176 vessels already at sea -- enough to feed over 7 million people," Kuleba tweeted Sunday.
"Russia has planned this well in advance," he said.
However, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said Sunday that condemning Russia for the suspension of the grain deal is unfair, reported CNN.
"The situation has escalated even further. But in the US, they do not intend to acknowledge this. Again, everything is reduced to false accusations that our country is exacerbating the global food problem," Antonov said in a statement published on Facebook.
"It is unfair to condemn Russia for suspending the implementation of the deal. This happened because of the reckless actions of the Ukrainian authorities," said Antonov.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia's suspension of the grain exports deal is a deliberately working to ensure starvation in the war-ravaged country.
Zelenskyy called the decision of Russia to suspend its participation in the grain export deal with Ukraine "deliberate" and "a rather predictable statement" in his nightly address Saturday.
"This is not the decision they made today," Zelenskyy said. "Russia began deliberately exacerbating the food crisis back in September when it blocked the movement of ships with our food."
"How can Russia be among the others in the G20 if it is deliberately working to ensure starvation on several continents? This is nonsense. Russia has no place in the 'twenty,'" Zelenskyy added.
Russia suspended its participation in an UN-brokered grain deal viewed as key to addressing the global food shortage, according to Russia's Defence Ministry.
The Russian foreign ministry said it is suspending its participation in the United Nations-brokered grain deal with Ukraine for an "indefinite period of time," tying the decision to a drone attack in Crimea on Saturday.
"In connection with the actions, which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack, of the Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the specified humanitarian corridor, the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of humanitarian dry-cargo ships participating in the 'Black Sea Initiative,' and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period of time," a statement from the foreign ministry read.
Both Ukraine and Britain have rejected Russian allegations, with the United Kingdom saying Russia is "peddling false claims of an epic scale." (ANI)