railways. we start with the war in ukraine, and russia is denying that its invasion has caused a global food crisis, despite the fact that we ve seen soaring wheat prices driven by the collapse of ukrainian exports. its foreign minister, sergey lavrov, is in the turkish capital, ankara, for talks with his turkish counterpart mevlut cavusoglu. on the agenda creating a potential sea corridor for ukrainian agricultural exports. throughout the war, russia has been blockading black sea ports, including odesa. 20 million tonnes of grain is now stuck there grain many countries are reliant on. but mr lavrov says the onus is on ukraine to demine the waters around them, which were laid by ukraine as part of its defence. here s mr lavrov. to resolve this problem, we need one thing for the ukrainians to allow access to their ports, either by demining or the provision of safe corridors. nothing more is required. ukraine wants proper assurances that any safe, demined pathway wouldn t
are not under sanctions, but there are investments there. insurance, they re there. the financing finance operations to pay for that grain are. so first, before we export anything, those things have to be lifted and the arrangements made. then, on the ukrainian grain, we said long time that that it is not our fault that the coastal waters near odesa and other ports in the south of ukraine were mined by the ukrainians. if they do demine it, then if we are ready to provide safe passage for their vessels to go and to export their grain. if you re in the uk, you can watch the full interview with the russian ambassador to the un on iplayer. and outside the uk, you can watch it on bbc world news the times are on your screen now. wheat exports are at the centre of this because, until the conflict, russia and ukraine accounted for a third of global wheat supplies