Poland urges immediate Black Sea ceasefire to protect grain shipments

Speaking to reporters at the two-day G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday, Poland's top diplomat, Radoslaw Sikorski, pressed for fighting at sea to stop so cargo carrying grain from Ukrainian and Russian ports could move again, the Kyiv Post reported.

Sikorski said the priority was speed, pointing to countries in the Global South that depend on those shipments reaching world markets, according to Reuters. His proposal covers grain vessels from both Ukraine and Russia, using the Black Sea route that both countries rely on for agricultural trade.

He was careful to separate the maritime question from Ukraine's wider fight: Kyiv, he said, has to sit at the table in any talks to end an invasion that is now entering its fifth year, and Europe carries its own weight in the process that should not be set aside.

On energy, Sikorski set a condition: Russia should not be welcomed back as a supplier to European markets unless the war ends on terms that are fair to Ukraine. Poland has for years pushed European governments to break their dependence on Russian gas and oil, arguing it handed Moscow a political weapon over the continent's governments.

The comments landed amid a separate clash with Russia, this one over a US-backed push to make Poland a permanent G20 member; Washington holds the group's rotating presidency this year. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pushed back, telling reporters the move sidestepped the consensus the group normally requires and that Poland's economy did not merit a permanent seat, according to Vesti.bg.

The ceasefire proposal is the latest in a series of attempts to protect Ukraine's sea lanes from Russian attack. Zelensky raised the same question with Erdogan in September, on the margins of the UN General Assembly, saying any safe-passage deal hinges on Russia first stopping its strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure before a reciprocal arrangement could be reached.