Russia and its accomplices have sold nearly one billion dollars worth of stolen grain in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Since 2022, the Russians have managed to occupy some of the most fertile lands in Europe. There, the occupiers either took away crops or bought them for next to nothing, often by force, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This ‘business’ has a wide network of clients, including the firms responsible for the Russian invasion, as well as a company linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Crimean businessman Hanaga, who cooperates with Syria and Israel through his company Agro-Fregat LLC, and a company that trades with the UAE.
The sale of loot helps Russia cope with the economic pressure from countries that have imposed sanctions. In this way, the loot stolen as a result of the war helps finance the war itself.
The exact commercial value of stolen agricultural products is difficult to determine. However, according to Deputy Agriculture Minister Dmytrasevych, since 2022, at least 4 million tonnes of grain from the occupied part of Ukraine have been sold on international markets, which is worth about $800 million.According to Texts, most of the stolen goods were exported by small ships or by land. According to them, the total value of the grain stolen by the Russians could reach $6.4 billion.
The complicity in this takes many forms. According to the US government, three of the ships exporting large volumes of illegal grain are owned through a network of corporate entities by the Russian state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation, which also produced the warships used to fire on Ukraine.
A Russian company selling grain from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhya Region donated 10 million rubles ($111,000) to the occupiers' battalion.
Sometimes foreign vessels are involved in sales schemes. Turkey has banned ships from leaving the occupied Ukrainian terminals and is cooperating with Kyiv to block the illegal trade, the country's foreign ministry said. However, Ukrainian prosecutor Ihor Ponochovnyy in June began monitoring the Turkish vessel Usko MFU, which he suspects was transporting stolen grain last year from the Sevastopol port. In November, this vessel transported 2,100 tonnes of crushed sunflower and brown wheat seeds to Turkey with a potential value of half a million dollars. Investigators said they found a message on board from the ship's managers to the captain instructing him to conceal the cargo's Crimean origin. In July, Ukrainian border guards detained the Usko. The vessel's owner, USKO Shipping Management, did not respond to a request for comment. A lawyer representing the ship's captain declined to comment.
The market for Crimean grain is Yemen and Iran. The Kharkiv prosecutor's office is also investigating a trader suspected of stealing grain and reselling it to an Emirati company. Helios Plus attracted the attention of prosecutors after it exported all 700 tonnes of grain remaining at a bakery in the city of Kupyansk when Russia seized it in August 2022.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, Egypt, Israel and Lebanon stopped buying the grain after being told it was stolen.