Two reasons why Ukraine rejected the Black Sea agreement with Russia

According to RT, political scientist Vladimir Kornilov said: "It is difficult to assess which clause in the agreement made Ukraine unhappy. But I believe that President Zelensky's office had some reasons to "retaliate" at the last minute."

So, according to some speculations, Kiev came up with certain terms, and when they realized that the participants could not accept those terms, Kiev abandoned the deal.

According to political scientist Kornilov, it is possible to predict that Ukraine’s condition would be to allow NATO warships to be present in the Black Sea to escort ships going to Ukrainian ports and vice versa. Previously, the Ukrainian leadership had spoken about a similar initiative.

"For Russia and Türkiye, this proposal is unacceptable. Obviously, the parties cannot make any concessions on this issue. Perhaps Kiev realized the futility of achieving what it wanted, so it decided to break the agreement," said Mr. Kornilov.

However, according to Mr. Kornilov, there is another reason. That is, President Zelensky fears the consequences of reaching an agreement.

"Kiev has officially banned negotiations with Russia. Perhaps when it became clear that Türkiye would soon announce a transit deal, the Ukrainian president's advisers realized that the deal could be seen as a violation of Zelensky's own decree."

Russia, Ukraine and Türkiye have been negotiating for two months on a maritime security agreement in the Black Sea, and have almost reached a consensus on the document. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was scheduled to announce the agreement on March 30. But according to Reuters, Kiev backed out at the last minute. It is not yet clear why Ukraine decided to withdraw.

The parties are said to have been urged by the United Nations to begin talks.