Wheat ears . Archive photoMOSCOW, May 26.The Netherlands will consider joining a coalition to escort vessels with Ukrainian grain, but they will need guarantees from Russia and «ideally» Turkey's participation, Dutch Defense Minister Kaisa Ollongren said. Liz Truss supported the idea of creating a coalition of countries that would deal with the supply of Ukrainian grain. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis proposed to create such a naval coalition. In his opinion, the only practical way to export grain is through Odessa. His plan calls for clearing parts of the Black Sea and reaching an agreement with Turkey. The Minister suggested that, in addition to Britain, the ships could be protected by states that would be affected by the potential loss of grain, for example, Egypt. The UK Department of Defense later stated that it had no plans to deploy warships in the Black Sea to unlock Ukrainian grain supplies. «If there is any way to do this (to take the grain out) and if the Netherlands were asked to contribute, of course, I would be very happy to be part of such an alliance. But we are not at this stage yet, unfortunately,» Ollongren said in an interview with Bloomberg. According to her, the creation of a sea corridor will require «real guarantees» from the Russian Federation that it will cooperate and allow ships to make the journey. It is important that Turkey take part in this, given its actions aimed at maintaining a dialogue between Moscow and Kyiv, she added. According to Ollongren, other measures to transport grain by land were ineffective. Some kind of corridor needs to be created within the next two months, the minister emphasized.
