wheat and peace

Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement on Friday to resume the export of grain from silos on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea, at a rate of about five million tons per month, through maritime corridors guaranteed by Turkey and the United Nations.

There are two documents signed at the summit held in Istanbul, under the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one by each of the parties, Russian and Ukrainian, with the two guarantors, but without any contact or signature between the two.

Proof of its fragility is its immediate violation within 24 hours, with the Russian bombardment of the Odessa port facilities, one of the three exit points for wheat.

Despite the uncertainty about its application, it is one of the first pieces of good news to come out of the plains set on fire by Russian aggression and, at the same time, a diplomatic success for Turkey, whose government maintains good relations with both countries and has tried from day one organize direct conversations.

Erdogan maintains a difficult balance, which has allowed him to avoid sanctions against Russia while he supplied the Bayraktar drones with which Ukraine managed to stop the invasion.

As a NATO partner, it still holds the key to the incorporation of Finland and Sweden, after having given the initial green light to this new enlargement in Madrid, together with the new Strategic Concept in which Russia is designated as an immediate danger to the security of the Alliance.

The consistency of the agreement will be seen at the time of its application, within 10 days, if the arrival of empty transport ships and their return to the Mediterranean already loaded with Ukrainian wheat becomes effective, maneuvers that require complex coordination to ensure that they are not attacked, they do not trip over the mines placed by both sides, nor do they carry weapons.

If it works during the 120 renewable days established in the agreement, Ukraine will be able to export up to 22 million tons of cereals and prepare to continue with the new harvest, in an operation that will mean a valuable injection of income for its economy depressed by the war.

Russia wants to take advantage of the agreement in its diplomacy towards the countries of the global south, with a view to cushioning its isolation.

The Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, on tour in several African countries, is already in charge of expressing his concern about the famines and charging kyiv and the United States with responsibility for the blockade of Ukrainian wheat and the mining of the Black Sea.

Although not directly related to the wheat agreement, the tour that French President Emmanuel Macron begins this Tuesday to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau also underlines French interest and strategic competition with Russia by the European country most involved in the African continent.

Wheat can be a harbinger of a ceasefire and peace.

The agreement is already a certain maritime ceasefire, although Vladimir Putin wanted to indicate with the bombing that it depended exclusively on his will.

Moscow's maritime superiority and its right of inspection allow it to modulate the grain flow in the Black Sea and even interrupt it, so that with propaganda in one hand and the supply spigot in the other it can easily become an instrument for strategy. Putin's war effort, and especially to put Volodymyr Zelensky at a disadvantage in the peace negotiations.

Avoiding it will be in the hands of Ukraine's allies, to the extent that they maintain their solidarity with kyiv, their unity in the sanctions and the supply to the Ukrainian army of weapons that will allow it to continue resisting the invasion.