KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced Saturday that it will immediately suspend its implementation of a UN brokered grain deal that has seen more than nine million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices.

The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.

The Russian declaration came one day after UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal, which was scheduled to expire on November 19. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

The UN chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.

UN officials were in touch with Russian authorities over the announced suspension.

“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said the UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged attack by drones on Russian ships in Crimea. Britain’s Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the claim.

“In connection with the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the Black Sea initiative, and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period,” the Russian statement said.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure said that Ukraine has never threatened the Black Sea grain corridor which “is exclusively humanitarian in nature,” and would continue to try to keep shipments going. It said since the first ship left the port of Odesa on August 1, more than nine million tons of food have been exported, including more than five million tons to African and Asian countries. As part of the UN World Food Program, it said, 190 thousand tons of wheat have been sent to countries where there is hunger.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by imperiling global food shipments.

“We warned about Russia’s plans to destroy the (grain agreement). Now, under false pretenses, Moscow is blocking the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people,” he tweeted Saturday.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as part of Russia’s “primitive blackmail.”

Turkish officials said they haven’t received any official notice yet of the deal’s suspension.