President of the country-aggressor Vladimir Putin promotes the idea of free transfer of more than 300 thousand tons of fertilizers, stuck in European ports, to developing countries if Europe does not agree to ease sanctions on Russian exports.
According to Reuters, Russian president announced this during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan.
Allegedly because Europe has only "partially" lifted sanctions, it is thus blocking the Kremlin's ability to sell and ship its fertilizers. During the summit, Putin asked UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo to influence the European Commission to lift restrictions on Russia over fertilizers.
The biggest fertilizer producers are EuroChem and Uralchem, which includes Uralkali and Togliattiazot. All these companies are owned by Putin’s longtime associates and friends Andrei Melnichenko and Dmitry Mazepin, who advocate war in Ukraine and support Putin.
In particular, personal sanctions were imposed on Mazepin as a businessman from the closest entourage of the russian president in March, and Uralchem's census of Dmitry Konyaev and Dmitry Tatyanin did not help the company. Foreign banks refused to accept payments from Uralchem. But Mazepin is looking for ways to remove sanctions from his enterprises.
For example, Russia is cooperating with Iran, with which it recently signed a contract to supply 1,000 Shahed 129 Iranian reconnaissance strike drones. This purchase may involve Denis Manturov, the Russian deputy prime minister and minister of industry and trade, who, thanks to his personal ties and friendship with Dmitry Mazepin, a Russian businessman and former chairman of Uralkali and owner of TogliattiAzot, has agreed to receive some Iranian drones in exchange for Mazepin's ammonia.