33 Million Tons on the Record: How the Black Sea Grain Initiative Was Built in Istanbul

Why It Matters

The Black Sea Grain Initiative was a set of agreements signed in Istanbul on 22 July 2022 that allowed commercial ships to leave three Ukrainian ports under a joint inspection and monitoring system. Between August 2022 and July 2023, the Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) in Istanbul recorded about 32.9 million metric tons of grain and other food products shipped, the total commonly rounded to 33 million tons. It matters because it is a documented case of two countries at war signing parallel texts with the UN and Türkiye, and because its suspension shows how fragile such arrangements are when the linked commitments diverge.

Background

The deal answered a specific problem: after the full-scale Russian invasion of 24 February 2022, Ukrainian Black Sea ports were blockaded or unsafe, and millions of tons of grain were stuck. Ukraine and Russia were both major suppliers of wheat, maize and sunflower oil, and the FAO Food Price Index reached a record high in March 2022. The UN, Türkiye, Russia and Ukraine spent roughly four months negotiating a way out.

Timeline

The two documents

The 22 July package had two parts. The first, the Initiative on the Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs from Ukrainian Ports, was agreed by Türkiye, the UN and each of the two belligerents, with Russia and Ukraine signing separately rather than jointly with one another. The second was a Memorandum of Understanding between the Russian Federation and the UN Secretariat on promoting Russian food and fertilizer exports to world markets. The UN described the two as complementary. Russia increasingly treated the second as the condition for the first.

How the mechanics worked

• Ports: Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi (Yuzhne) were the covered ports.
• Joint Coordination Centre: Staffed by senior officials of the UN, Türkiye, Russia and Ukraine, the JCC set the sailing schedule, approved vessels and tracked movements.
• Inspection: Joint teams inspected vessels at a designated anchorage area in Turkish waters near Istanbul. The aim was to confirm that inbound ships carried no weapons and that outbound cargoes were food and related goods.
• Corridor: Ships moved along a defined maritime route, with notification to mariners and a commitment by the parties to refrain from attacking vessels and port facilities covered by the arrangement.
• Humanitarian use: The World Food Programme chartered grain from Ukraine under the corridor for operations in places such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen.

The UN summarised the outcome at roughly 32.9 million metric tons, with maize the largest share and wheat second. Türkiye's official communications use the rounded figure of 33 million tons or more. For deeper context on the delivery mechanics, see Doctrine Review's explainer on how the initiative worked and why it ended.

The Montreux link

The corridor operated inside a Black Sea whose naval balance had already been frozen by the 1936 Montreux Convention. Under Article 19, Türkiye restricted passage of belligerent warships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles from late February 2022. This did not create the corridor, but it reduced the risk of naval escalation and gave civilian shipping a more predictable environment. The legal detail is covered in The Global Anatomy's analysis of Montreux and Black Sea mediation.

Key Players & Positions

Each party has its own account of why the arrangement worked and why it stopped. The summaries below follow their own official statements and avoid adjudicating beyond the record.

United Nations

The UN Secretary-General's office framed the initiative as a humanitarian necessity and argued that it helped lower global food prices. In July 2023 Guterres expressed regret at Russia's decision and stressed that the grain and fertilizer tracks were meant to be mutually reinforcing. The UN said it had worked on facilitating Russian food and fertilizer exports, noting that these were not directly targeted by Western sanctions, while acknowledging that banking, insurance and logistics frictions persisted. UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan led much of the work on the Russia-facing memorandum.

Russia

Moscow's position, set out by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is that the Russia–UN memorandum was never implemented in substance. Its list of grievances included the reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT messaging system, supplies of spare parts and machinery for agriculture, insurance and port access, and the resumption of an ammonia pipeline to Odesa. Russia also argued that too little Ukrainian grain reached the poorest countries. The UN disputed this characterisation, pointing to the destinations data compiled by the JCC. On 17 July 2023 the Kremlin said the deal had ended for now because those conditions were unmet, and that it could return to the arrangement quickly if they were fulfilled.

Ukraine

Kyiv's position is that the corridor was a functioning, UN-monitored mechanism that served global food markets and Ukraine's own economy, and that Russia used its suspension as leverage. After July 2023, the Ukrainian government and military said they would maintain exports by establishing a temporary route hugging the western coastline. Ukrainian officials also reported increased Russian strikes on port infrastructure in Odesa region. Ukraine has consistently said it supports resuming a UN-backed corridor, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Presidency have said so repeatedly.

Türkiye

Ankara acted as co-signatory, host and facilitator. Its position is covered in the dedicated section below. A parallel account from a sister publication is available in Interstate Journal's piece on how Türkiye helped broker the deal.

Source Comparison

The sources broadly agree on dates and structure and differ on causes, responsibility and the likelihood of revival. The table separates what each side says in its own words.

Two framing differences are worth noting. Many Western outlets present the story mainly as Russia versus the rest, with Türkiye as a venue. Turkish primary sources emphasise that all four parties signed up and that the process depended on trust built through personal diplomacy. A fact-based discussion of the claim that Ankara took sides is in Frontline Diplomacy's fact check on whether Türkiye blocked or brokered the deal. Readers should weigh these accounts against the JCC's published data and the texts themselves. Our approach to sourcing is set out in Editorial Principles.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Joint Coordination Centre (JCC): The Istanbul-based body that coordinated sailing, inspection and monitoring, with staff from the UN, Türkiye, Russia and Ukraine.
• Russia–UN Memorandum of Understanding: The companion text on Russian food and fertilizer exports, which Russia treated as inseparable from the grain deal.
• Montreux Convention (1936): The treaty governing the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, including restrictions on warships of belligerent states in wartime under Article 19.
• Humanitarian corridor: A defined route and set of procedures, agreed by the parties, under which civilian cargo ships move without being targeted.
• Food security: The reliable availability and affordability of food, a particular concern for import-dependent states.

Related reading: Why The Unspoken File takes a stated perspective, the Reader FAQ on sources and method, and The Political Anatomy's overview of Türkiye as mediator.

What the Record Shows

The documented core is straightforward: a UN, Turkish, Russian and Ukrainian mechanism moved a verified tonnage of food out of a war zone for a year. The contested points are about the sufficiency of the Russia-facing commitments and whether a revived corridor is possible. A reader who wants to check these claims should start with the JCC's published data, the UN statements of July 2022 and July 2023, and the Turkish Foreign Ministry and Presidency releases of the same dates.

The Unspoken File publishes this analysis from a perspective that presents and defends Türkiye's official positions and legal theses, and we state this openly to our readers. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaty texts, UN documents, archival records and official statements, so that readers can verify them independently.

Published by The Unspoken File Editorial Team. Return to the front page.