Putin added that Russia intended to honor its obligations under contracts for the supply of energy, food and fertilizers abroad.

Meanwhile, Indonesia will continue cooperation with Russia, President Jokowi told reporters after the meeting on Thursday.

Speaking through a translator, he also said it was important to move toward a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine-Russia war, Reuters reported.

On Wednesday, President Jokowi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Mariinsky Palace, Kyiv, as part of a visit to the war-ravaged country to talk about peace and the impact the war has had on the global food supply chain.

During the joint press conference after a meeting between the two presidents, Jokowi said that his visit to Ukraine showed that the Indonesian people cared about what happened in Ukraine.

“I told President Zelensky that my visit here is as a manifestation of Indonesia’s concerns over the situation in Ukraine,” Jokowi said on Wednesday.

Ahead of the visit, the President had said that his mission was to seek an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, which has caused food shortages and surging commodity prices around the world.

In Wednesday’s statement Jokowi reiterated Ukraine’s importance to the global food supply chain.

“It is important for all stakeholders to provide safety for Ukrainian food exports, including from seaports. I support what the United Nations has done to support this,” he said.

On the peace-seeking front, Jokowi stressed that Indonesia’s position was firm in that sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country must be respected, and even though peace might be hard to achieve, it was important that the conflict ended in a peaceful resolution and the spirit of peace should never fade.

“I offered to President Zelensky to relay any message to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, who I will also visit soon,” Jokowi said.

He also said that he was concerned about the humanitarian impacts of the war in Ukraine, and with available resources the Indonesian people and government had been giving aid in the form of medicine and pledged to help in the reconstruction of hospitals in Kyiv.

Jokowi extended once more Indonesia’s invitation for Zelensky to attend the Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Bali this November, adding that Indonesia and Ukraine had had 30 years of diplomatic relations and Indonesia was committed to strengthening cooperation between the two countries.

Food headache

On his part, Zelensky said he was grateful for the Indonesian President’s visit to Ukraine.

"This […] is the first visit of the leader of an Asian state to Kyiv since the beginning of the full-scale Russian war. We really appreciate it and are thankful to you," Zelensky said in a statement spoken in Ukrainian.

Zelensky also thanked Jokowi for Indonesia’s “unwavering support” for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and accepted the G20 invitation.

”I am grateful to you, Mr. President, for the personal invitation to take part in the G20 summit, and, of course, I accept the invitation. Ukraine's participation will depend on the security situation in the country and on the composition of participants," Zelensky said.

On the issue of resuming Ukrainian agricultural exports, the Ukrainian president said that it would need the lifting of Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian seaports.

Russia was “blackmailing the world with hunger,” as food supplies from Ukraine had played a “stabilizing role” for the world market, he said. “Tens of millions of tons of grain from Ukraine should reach consumers, in particular the people of Indonesia.”

In an interview with Kompas in Kyiv, Jokowi said that the global food crisis was a big problem that resulted from the war between Ukraine and Russia, with up to 22 million tons of wheat that could not be exported while there would be around 55 million tons of wheat that Ukrainian farmers would soon harvest.

“If [wheat] cannot be exported from [Ukraine], then it will be a headache for everyone in the world. There are some 77 million tons, imagine if none of that could get out,” he said.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said that currently the export of wheat could only be done from the port in Odessa, which had been blockaded with sea mines, alternatively the export would have to be moved by land.

She also said that if Ukraine could not export its wheat, then the local farmers would be disincentivized leading to further scarcity.

In a separate meeting, Minister Retno and Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba signed an intergovernmental visa-free agreement, allowing Ukrainians to visit Indonesia visa free for up to 30 days and for Indonesians to visit Ukraine for up to 30 days within 60 days.

Zelensky also invited the Indonesian government and private companies to join in reconstruction efforts in Ukraine after the war.

Jokowi continued his peace-building mission by going to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin. He arrived in Moscow on Thursday afternoon local time after flying from Poland following a sleeper train ride from Kyiv.