Ukraine asks NATO and Turkey to influence Russia to block grain deal

This is stated in a joint statement of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Deputy Prime Minister for Rebuilding of Ukraine Oleksandr Kubrakov.

The document said that Russia was trying to block the operation of the "grain corridor". Ukraine has asked the UN and Turkey for help.

Ukraine is deeply concerned about Russia's destructive actions that are delaying the work of the "grain corridor" through the Black Sea and undermining the Black Sea Grain Initiative as a whole, impeding navigation in the Black Sea and free access of food to world markets.

Ukrainian ministers say that Russia's inspection teams at the Coordination Centre in Istanbul have been systematically delaying the inspection of vessels for several months now.

Russian inspectors obstruct the work of the ships in every possible way: they do not work during working hours, they look for unreasonable reasons to stop inspections. Out of the planned 10 inspections per day, less than half of the inspections take place.

Because of this the world has been short 10 million tons of Ukrainian grain for the last three months.

There is now a queue of more than 140 ships in the Bosporus, the vast majority of which have been waiting there for more than a month.