Russia accuses UK of using Black Sea grain corridor to supply Ukraine with arms

Russia on Wednesday (October 30) accused Britain of using a Black Sea grain corridor to transport arms to Ukraine. That claim came after Moscow denied British allegations that Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports have disrupted critical grain supplies to other nations.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said last week that an uptick in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was delaying essential aid to Palestinians and hampering grain deliveries to the global south.

The United Nations (UN) reported that since September 1, Russian attacks on Ukrainian Black Sea ports have damaged six civilian vessels and impacted grain infrastructure, calling the escalation in strikes “distressing.”

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Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova countered Starmer’s statements, calling his accusations that Moscow was jeopardising global food security “baseless”.

Speaking at a press briefing, Zakharova alleged “Such baseless yet thunderous outrage from London once again confirms just the opposite: the direct involvement of the UK in supplying arms to the Kiev regime using the Black Sea sea corridor.”

Zakharova cited purported video evidence from Ukraine’s Odesa region, specifically the port of Yuzhny, which Russia’s Ministry of Defense claims shows arms supplies.

These claims could not be independently verified.

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Ukraine, a major global exporter of wheat and corn, had been shipping around six million tons of grain monthly via the Black Sea prior to Russia’s invasion in 2022. Following the collapse of a UN-backed grain export initiative last year, Ukraine established its own Black Sea shipping corridor.

In a separate development, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, promised an annual 3 billion-pound support for Ukraine would continue for “as long as it takes”.

In her first budget speech, Reeves, the first woman finance minister of the country, said that the promise to maintain the annual military support to Ukraine came on top of a 2.26 billion pound loan.

With inputs from agencies