In what is the equivalent of having to retake a remedial academic course, the UN secretary-general and the Turkish president today revisited a shaky agreement set up to allow the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports. The UN chief also warned against a catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear plant. 

While visiting Lviv, Secretary-General Guterres boasted that the “unprecedented agreement,” struck with the parties to the Ukraine war last month under the auspices of the world body and Turkey, is already succeeding. Eventually, he promised, the pact could resolve global food shortages that have resulted from a Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, which has stopped the grain exports.

“In less than one month, 21 ships have departed from Ukrainian ports and 15 vessels have left Istanbul for Ukraine to load up with grain and other food supplies,” Mr. Guterres told reporters.  “As we speak, more than 560,000 metric tons of grain and other food produced by Ukrainian farmers is making its way to markets around the world.”

The July 22 accord unlocked three Black Sea ports, allowing some Ukrainian grain exports to resume after farmers were forced to store crops, or even destroy them, since February’s Russian invasion of the country. Yet, even after the deal was struck, exports have been anemic. Ukraine’s output this year is expected to drop 46 percent in comparison with last year. 

Even worse, at least one grain shipment that actually reached port under the UN-sponsored agreement contained stolen Ukrainian crops that ended up at the Syrian port at Tartus.

A Sierra Leone-flagged vessel, Razoni, carried “grains that were plundered and illegally transported by the Russian occupation authorities,” the Ukrainian embassy at Beirut, Lebanon, said in a statement. 

The Russian-owned Razoni was the first to sail out of Ukraine’s ports under the UN-sponsored agreement. According to UN statements at the time, its destination was the Lebanese port at Tripoli, where it indeed docked at first. Lebanese authorities, however, released the ship after failing to establish that it contained stolen grains.

The Lebanese contractor who originally bought the grains from Ukraine before the war canceled the sale after the cargo failed to arrive in a timely manner. From Tripoli, the ship sailed to the nearby Syrian port of Tartus, which is operated by a Russian contractor. Moscow’s ally, President Assad of Syria, was the ultimate benefactor. 

In Lviv today Mr. Guterres said that “there is no solution to the global food crisis without ensuring full global access to Ukraine’s food products and Russian food and fertilizers.”

Indeed, before the war Ukrainian grain exports were responsible for supplying basic foodstuffs to many countries in the Mideast, Africa, and beyond. Their absence from world markets led to a dramatic rise in the price of basic foods around the world. 

So even a trickle out of Ukraine would ease some of the inflationary pressures on the global economy. Trying to resolve the deadlock, therefore, is a noble undertaking. Yet, can it succeed if all it uses is what is known at Turtle Bay as the UN “good offices”?

As Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grains to benefit the “Damascus Butcher” amply demonstrates, pacts signed by Moscow can only succeed if they address Russian interests. Put differently: Russia would allow grain exports only if doing so would help its cause. 

The same applies to Mr. Guterres’s other top reason for visiting Ukraine: “I remain gravely concerned about the unfolding situation in and around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia,” he said at Lviv. “The facility must not be used as part of any military operation.”

Russia has been using its occupation of the nuclear plant’s environs for a very dangerous game of chicken with the Ukrainian military. Russian troops have shielded themselves around Zaporizhzhia and fired from there at Ukrainian forces, while accusing Kyiv of targeting the plant and risking a Chernobyl-type disaster.

As Mr. Guterres rightly said, “We must tell it like it is — any potential damage to Zaporizhzhia is suicide.” He called for demilitarization of the plant, avoidance of “further” troop deployment, removal of military equipment, and a granting of access to officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

As in the case of grain exports, any such actions would be taken not because a UN official “tells it like it is”: It could only happen if doing so served the interests of the Russian occupation forces. 

Moscow has surrounded Zaporizhzhia and prevented Ukrainian grain exports in order to achieve military goals. Under pressure, the Russians may, at best, tweak their tactics somewhat. The global dangers that these tactics underline are unlikely to ease before the war ends.