President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky says that neither he nor Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba were invited to a meeting in Ankara on June 8, which will, in particular, consider the issue of Black Sea shipping and which will be attended by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov.

"I was not invited. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has not been invited to date," Zelensky said during a conversation with reporters on Monday, answering a related question.

According to the president, he discussed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, among others, the issue of mediation by the Turkish side in unblocking Ukrainian ports.

"For us, it is important that we are ready to produce grain... For us [it is important] that there is a safe corridor of ships – that this or that fleet of this or that state will ensure the export of this grain to us. That is all. And here we talked both with Britain and Turkey. Turkey is now finding a format to give us guarantees... I think because of this they are meeting with the Russians so that Russia will give Turkey guarantees that nothing will happen to their ships. I think so. But, however, the details of their meeting are unknown to me yet," Zelensky said.

The president also said that negotiations on the export of grain are being held with the UN, as well as with the Baltic countries and Poland – on the export of some volume by rail, but this direction is not a priority due to the long delivery times. Through Odesa ports, according to him, Ukraine can export 10 million tonnes of grain monthly. "If now we have 22 million to 25 million tonnes blocked there, but in the autumn we may already have 75 million. What are we going to do? Therefore, we wo not be able to do without ports," Zelensky said.

When asked under what conditions Ukraine can go for demining the coast of Odesa ports and who should be the guarantor for the Ukrainian side to do this, he replied: "I consider the strongest guarantee is our appropriate weapons that will be deployed in the region, the unblocking of another corridor to the port for the export of grain".

"We are working on this with specific states, with specific anti-ship systems. We are working and are already getting a little, I can already state. I think this is the best guarantee," Zelensky said.