Russia and its partners have sold almost USD 1 billion worth of stolen grain since 2012. The Russian occupiers have either confiscated harvests or bought them cheaply, often by force.
This was reported by the CFTS portal, citing the newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
The trade in looted Ukrainian agricultural products keeps Russia's allies funded and loyal to Moscow even as it faces mounting economic pressure, providing a sort of off-balance-sheet vehicle to finance Kremlin objectives, the newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, Russian authorities say they sent 15 ships carrying 81,000 tons of wheat from Mariupol to Turkey in the first half of this year. However, Turkish foreign affairs officials say Turkey bans ships from occupied Ukrainian terminals and cooperates with Kyiv to block illicit trade.
The exact commercial value of Russia's theft is difficult to determine amid the chaos of war and Moscow's subterfuge, but it is large, the newspaper reported. Since 2022, the operation has directly shipped at least 4 million tons of grain and other products from occupied Ukraine to international markets, generating USD 800 million in revenue, the newspaper quoted Ukrainian Deputy Agriculture Minister Markian Dmytrasevych as saying.
Much more was exported by land or on small ships, according to the Ukrainian nonprofit organization Texty, which estimates that the total value of grain seized by Russia in the occupied territories could be as high as USD 6.4 billion, the newspaper wrote.
According to the U.S. government, three bulk carriers exporting large amounts of illegal grain are owned through a chain of companies by Russia's state-owned United Shipbuilding Corp., which also produced the warships used to shell Ukrainian cities.
Foreign ships are also involved in the sales schemes.
The markets for Crimean grain are Yemen and Iran. According to the newspaper, Ukrainian prosecutors in Kharkiv are investigating a trader they suspect of stealing grain and reselling cargoes to an Emirati company. Helios Plus came to the attention of prosecutors after it removed all 700 tons of grain left at a bread mill in Kupiansk when Russia seized the city in August 2022.
According to Ukrainian officials, over the past two years, Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon either canceled loadings or stopped buying grain cargoes after Ukrainian diplomats told them they had departed from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
