Russian Foreign Minister Says Moscow Planning To Send Fertilizers To Nigeria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia was planning to send fertilizers to Nigeria in the near future

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 30th May, 2023) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Russia was planning to send fertilizers to Nigeria in the near future.

"Burundi and many other African countries are in urgent need of fertilizers ... Last September, (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin announced that we are ready to transfer 300,000 tonnes of our fertilizers illegally seized in the EU ports to African countries free of charge ... It took us six months to send at least the first batch of 20,000 tonnes to Malawi, and recently another shipment of a comparable amount of fertilizers to Kenya took place. A similar shipment to Nigeria is planned in the near future," Lavrov said after a meeting with Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye.

In July 2022, Ukraine and Russia signed a deal brokered by Turkey and the United Nations to unblock shipments of grain, food, and fertilizer in the Black Sea despite hostilities. Moscow has repeatedly said that most vessels carrying Ukrainian grain do not reach the world's poorest countries and end up in Europe.

In March, Putin reiterated his call to comply with all the provisions of the grain deal so that the foodstuffs were sent not to "well-fed European countries," but to Africa, which has currently received only 3% of all grain exported from Ukraine.