UN chief says grain deal unlikely to be extended to further Ukrainian ports

Ukraine had called for expansion of deal with Russia, allowing it to ship food products from three ports 

It is unlikely the Black Sea grain deal will be expanded in the near term, a UN aid chief said.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths has said it was unlikely the Black Sea grain deal would be expanded in the near term to include more Ukrainian ports or reduce inspection times.

Kyiv has called for an expansion of the deal with Moscow which was mediated by the United Nations and Turkey and allows Ukraine, a major global grain exporter, to ship food products from three of its Black Sea ports despite Russia's invasion.

"I don't see that happening in the next, near term," the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told Reuters in an interview in the Ukrainian capital.

I think it would be great if it could be expanded, the more grain that gets out into the world, the better clearly from our point of view, from the world's point of view. But I don't think that's immediately likely.

Mr Griffiths travelled to Ukraine this week, visiting the southern cities of Mykolaiv and recently-liberated Kherson as Ukraine grapples with winter power outages caused by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.

The official, who said he was not in Ukraine to mediate and that he was strictly there to review the humanitarian aid programme, said on November 30 that a deal was "close" to agreeing a resumption of Russian ammonia exports via Ukraine.

Ammonia, which is used to make fertiliser, would be pumped through an existing pipeline to the Black Sea. 

The pipeline was shut down when Russia invaded this year.

On Thursday, Mr Griffiths said work on that agreement was still under way and that he did not know when it would go through.

"We continue to... obviously want it because...fertiliser at the moment is almost more important than grain in terms of export to the global south," he said.

"So we're still working at it. I don't know when it will go through," he said.

Russian and Ukrainian representatives have discussed the possibility of linking a prisoner swap that would release a large number of prisoners on both sides to the resumption of ammonia exports.

Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the UN Conference on Trade and Development, also voiced optimism and said there would be a breakthrough in negotiations.

At a news conference with Ukraine's prime minister, Mr Griffiths said international humanitarian aid agencies had reached just under 14m people with assistance since the beginning of the war. 

Digging in for long war

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian general said that Moscow was digging in for a long war and still wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine, as Russian forces pounded two strategic cities while Kyiv's troops shelled Russian-controlled Donetsk in the east.

Both sides have ruled out a Christmas truce and there are currently no talks aimed at ending the nearly 10-month-old conflict, Europe's largest since the Second World War.

Russian shelling killed two people in the centre of Kherson, the southern city liberated by Ukraine last month, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president's office. The shelling also knocked out the city's electricity, officials said. 

Russian forces also attacked critical infrastructure in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, causing several explosions, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"The Kremlin... is seeking to turn the conflict into a prolonged armed confrontation," a senior Ukrainian officer, Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, told a news briefing.

• Reuters