Bild: russia is preparing an alternative grain deal with Turkey and Qatar

Turkey, russia, and Qatar are going to sign a new agreement to replace the grain deal, Bild reports, citing official correspondence between the countries' diplomatic missions.

In particular, russia intends to send its grain to poor countries, mainly African ones. In turn, Turkey will act as an organizer, and Qatar will sponsor the supplies.

The agreement may be signed this weekend in Budapest, where the Head of Tatarstan Rustam Minikhanov and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will arrive.

At the same time, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is continuing his attempts to bring russia back to the Black Sea Initiative so that grain can be supplied from Ukraine.

Ankara proposes to act under the auspices of the UN. However, no progress has been reported in this direction.

The Financial Times has previously reported that the Kremlin is promoting an alternative to the grain deal in an attempt to push Ukraine out of world markets.

russia was going to send up to 1 million tonnes of grain to Turkey on "preferential terms" to be exported to African countries. Qatar was to pay for the delivery, but neither Ankara nor Doha agreed to this proposal, the newspaper's sources said.

On August 15, it became known that the United States was discussing a grain deal with Turkey and Ukraine without russia. U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that the plan calls for an additional route for exporting 4 million tonnes of grain per month across the Danube by October. Most of the product will go down the river and across the Black Sea to ports in Romania, and from there to other countries.

Background. Today it was reported that the first ship to use the Ukrainian Black Sea corridor after russia's withdrawal from the grain initiative arrived in Istanbul, Turkey.