Many Will Die: UN Warns After Black Sea Grain Pact Expires

A spike in grain prices since Russia quit a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain "potentially threatens hunger and worse for millions of people," the United Nations aid chief told the Security Council on Friday.

"Some will go hungry, some will starve, many may die as a result of these decisions," Martin Griffiths told the 15-member council, adding that some 362 million people in 69 countries were in need of humanitarian aid.

Russia quit the Black Sea grain deal on Monday, saying that demands to improve its own food and fertilizer exports had not been met and that not enough Ukrainian grain had reached the poorest countries.

US wheat futures in Chicago rose over 6 per cent this week, and on Wednesday had their biggest daily gain since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. They pared some of those gains on Friday in part due to hopes Russia may resume talks on the deal.

The Black Sea grain deal was brokered a year ago by the United Nations and Turkey to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia's invasion. Ukraine and Russia are both leading grain exporters.

The UN has long argued that the Black Sea deal was a commercial operation and it had benefited poor states by helping lower food prices by more than 23 per cent globally since March last year. The World Food Programme also shipped 725,000 tonnes of grain to Afghanistan, Djibouti Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

But Mikhail Khan, a macroeconomist who Russia asked to brief the Security Council, said the poorest countries had received just 3 per cent of the grain shipped by Ukraine, in line with UN data.

The impact of the grain deal in terms of provisions of Ukrainian grain to global markets is "essentially not very significant," he said.

Russia is negotiating exports of food to countries most in need following its exit from the deal, but has not yet signed any contracts, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin said in Moscow on Friday.