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Russia's agriculture minister said that Moscow has begun free shipments of grain totalling up to 200,000 tonnes to six African countries, as promised by President Vladimir Putin in July.
Ships headed for Burkina Faso and Somalia have already left Russian ports, and additional shipments to Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Mali and the Central African Republic would soon follow, Dmitry Patrushev said in a statement posted on Telegram on Friday.
Putin had promised to deliver free grain to the six countries at a summit with African leaders in July, soon after Moscow withdrew from a deal that had allowed Ukraine to ship grain from its Black Sea ports despite the war with Russia.
Cereals destroyed
The deal, known as the Black Sea grain initiative brokered by Türkiye, had helped lower prices on the global market.
Last year, Russia exported around 60 million tonnes of grain, according to Putin. UN chief Antonio Guterres called the promises of free grain "a handful of donations".
Since quitting the arrangement, Russia has repeatedly bombed Ukrainian ports and grain storage facilities, and Kyiv says hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cereals have been destroyed, Reuters news agency reports.
However, Ukraine said on Friday that it had managed to ship 4.4 million tonnes of cargo including 3.2 million tonnes of grain via a new shipping corridor it established in August.
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