An April 28, 2022 file photo shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meeting U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres after a joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine. SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/GETTY

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived Tuesday for a visit to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, hoping to shore up the deal struck between Ukraine and Russia last year to allow for the export of grain from both countries. The agreement, negotiated and implemented by the U.N. and Turkey, must be renewed by March 18, but there's concern Russia may decline to keep it going.

Guterres only announced his brief visit to Kyiv after arriving earlier Tuesday in neighboring Poland. He was expected to be in Ukraine for only about a day before returning to U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the secretary-general would "discuss the continuation of the Black Sea Grain Initiative in all its aspects, as well as other pertinent issues," with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Wednesday morning.

After that meeting, Guterres said the U.N.'s position on the ongoing war was "crystal clear: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a violation of the UN Charter and international law."

He thanked Zelenksyy for welcoming him "in such difficult circumstances," and said it was important to "underscore the critical importance of the rollover of the Black Sea Grain Initiative."

Representatives from the U.N. and Turkey have been meeting to try to keep the grain exports flowing. The Black Sea Grain Initiative was signed in July 2022 in an urgent bid to free up some 20 million tons of grain that were stuck at the time in silos, ships and other storage facilities amid Russia's attack on Ukraine.

With Ukraine's ports blocked and sanctions preventing the export of some Russian grains and fertilizer, global food prices soared, putting humanitarian aid efforts around the world at particular risk.

CBS News met starving mothers and aid workers in South Sudan who said Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports was exacerbating one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet.

The U.N. has called the deal reached last year vital because it helps "to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people."

According to the Joint Coordination Center in Turkey, which manages the shipping lanes and cargo inspections under the auspices of the agreement, some 23 million tons of grains have been exported since it came into effect.

The deal also aimed to facilitate the export of Russian food and fertilizers, but Moscow has said those shipments have continued to be disrupted by U.S. and European sanctions. Russian officials said as recently as November that they would renew the pact, but the intense fighting still raging in Ukraine has put the extension in question.

Although food exports have not been placed under global sanctions, Moscow claims restrictions on banking and insurance companies have stalled the export of thousands of tons of Russian fertilizer.

The agreement reached in July has been hugely important to Guterres, who personally helped negotiate its terms. In his statement on Wednesday, Guterres said that until a "just peace can be secured" in Ukraine, he and the U.N. would "continue working hard to mitigate the impacts of the conflict which has caused enormous suffering for the Ukrainian people - with profound global implications."

He said Black Sea grain deal had "provided for the export of 23 million tons of grain from Ukrainian ports... contributed to lowering the global cost of food and has offered critical relief to people, who are also paying a high price for this war, particularly in the developing world."

The U.N. chief said previously that the four parties to the deal — Ukraine, Russia, the U.N. and Turkey — were "working hard to remove all the remaining obstacles. to facilitate exports of Russian food and fertilizers to global markets."

Both Kyiv and Moscow have reestablished their grain exports under the agreement, easing global food prices. Bloomberg reported last week that Russian grain exports were booming and that shipments of wheat had almost doubled over the past year.

There were warning signs last week that Russia could decline to renew the agreement when Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the U.S. and Europe of "shamelessly burying" the pact during a G-20 summit in India.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia at that meeting of "deliberately and systematically" slowing the export of Ukrainian grain shipments.


Grain is offloaded from a ship docked in the port of Mombasa, Kenya, Nov. 26, 2022, which arrived with 53,300 tons of wheat procured under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal to ease the export of Ukrainian grain and foodstuffs. GIDEON MAUNDU/AP

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