Lavrov announced the fast delivery of fertilizers to Nigeria free of charge

Russia will soon supply Nigeria with a batch of fertilizers free of charge, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the press conferences.

The minister recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced back in September 2022 that he was ready to supply 300,000 tons of Russian fertilizers to countries in need free of charge. The European Union, in accordance with “colonial habits,” boycotted this proposal.

“It took a long six months to send at least the first batch of 20,000 tons to Malawi, and just the other day another shipment of a comparable amount of fertilizers to Kenya took place, the same delivery is planned to Nigeria in the near future,” he said.

Earlier in March, Putin saidthat Russia, if the grain deal is not extended, will supply the needy African countries free of charge “the entire volume” that was sent to them in the previous time.

On May 17, however, the grain deal was extended for two months. The Kremlin noted the relative result in the negotiations with the participation of representatives of Turkey, Ukraine and the UN. According to the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, the fate of the deal is in the hands of those with whom the UN should agree on the Russian part of the treaty.

Later, the Foreign Ministry said that in the absence of progress on fulfilling the conditions of the second part of the deal and refusing to connect Rosselkhozbank to SWIFT, the Black Sea initiative will have to look for an alternative. Lavrov said earlier that the next two months would be decisive for the grain deal.