Oleksandr Kalenkov, the president of the Ukrmetallurhprom association of metallurgical enterprises, believes that Ukraine should not focus on concluding another grain deal with the Russian occupiers but on unblocking its ports.
The CFTS portal reported this, citing the Interfax Ukraine news agency.
"We need to move away from the word 'deal' altogether because there can be no deals with a terrorist country. We need to return everything to international law," Kalenkov said.
According to him, if Russia wants to inspect Ukrainian ships, Russian ships should also be inspected, especially since Russia transports ten times more cargo through the Black Sea than Ukraine.
The Ukrmetallurhprom president believes that the Ukrainian economy cannot exist without the ability to export the country’s products by sea.
"That is why we were talking about exporting at least something when we found ourselves under a blockade. I do not know who was the first to propose this format, but it is definitely not a deal but a forced step. Even if Ukraine did not conclude any deals with Russia but only with the United Nations and Turkey, these are still unnatural arrangements because Russia has violated dozens of international agreements, including agreements on international trade, by attacking Ukraine," Kalenkov said.
He added it was necessary to discuss Russia's violations of maritime laws with Ukraine’s international partners from the very beginning. According to him, Russia’s primary goal is to block Ukraine’s maritime trade completely, thus influencing the country's economy.
According to him, the main drawback of the grain deal is that Ukraine has legitimized Russia's demands for ship inspections to some extent, and Russia has deliberately organized ship inspections to minimize their number.
He expressed the belief that the word "grain" should be omitted during the conclusion of agreements because maritime routes should be opened for all civilian products.
"The mining and metals industry alone could increase exports by more than USD 8 billion if maritime transport is unblocked. These are funds that create economic development, and export growth would be over USD 18 billion if we were talking about all industries. All this would generate more than UAH 135 billion in state budget revenues," Kalenkov said.
According to him, Ukraine “needs to be provided with more air defense systems, including F-16 aircraft,” as well as minesweepers to monitor the country’s territorial and international waters, to ensure the blockade of its ports is lifted. In addition, according to him, the issues of cargo and ship insurance and transport costs need to be addressed.
