Russia won’t accept a new Black Sea truce, saying the West already broke its word once
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Friday that Moscow has received no formal proposal for a Black Sea strikes moratorium, a day after Reuters reported Kyiv had sent one via an intermediary likely Turkey. Zakharova added that even if such a proposal existed, Moscow sees no grounds for 'half-measures,' citing a 2022–2023 deal it says the West broke by not lifting sanctions in exchange for grain-export access.
Meanwhile both countries have escalated attacks on Black Sea shipping and ports: Russia has been hitting Odesa-region ports, halting grain vessel traffic since late July, while Ukraine struck Russia's Novorossiysk port on August 12, halting operations at terminals with a combined 26.1 million metric ton capacity.
Ukraine's agriculture minister said August shipments fell to about a third of normal volume and warned of storage shortages by November and global food price rises of 25–30% if nothing changes. Russian grain exporters separately warned of a possible 30–35 million metric ton shortfall in Russian wheat deliveries this season, and wheat futures rose about 3% after the Novorossiysk strike.
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