Reuters: Putin to use ʼgrain dealʼ as leverage at G20 summit

Author:
Oleksiy Yarmolenko
Date:

Russian President Putin plans to use the “grain agreement” to pressure and encourage other countries to negotiate at the G20 summit. This agreement allowed Ukraine to export grain and other agricultural crops from Black Sea ports.

Reuters writes about this with reference to sources.

The “grain agreement” is due to expire on November 19, and all countries will call on Russia to continue its operation. In Europe, it is believed that Putin will come to the G20 summit, and the topic of the continuation of this agreement will become a key one.

“The grain deal will be the central theme of this G20 summit and everyone will be trying to convince Putin to extend it, in fact to give his approval or extend it for a longer period,” the European diplomat said.

For Russia, this is a way to have trump cards during the summit, since it costs nothing to formally agree to the extension of the agreement. According to the diplomat, the leaders of the G20 countries will push Putin to such a decision and he will eventually agree. In this way, Putin wants to make him the key person of the summit, with whom everyone will want to hold negotiations and allegedly become the ones who were able to persuade the Russian president to extend the agreement.