Russia sold $6 billion worth of grain from the occupied territories

Russia sent the first batches of harvest harvested in the occupied territory to the foreign market already in the summer of 2022. Subsequently, a mass export of grain was established, which is estimated at billions of dollars. With this grain, Russia, in particular, paid off Iran for the supply of missiles.

Some of the most fertile agricultural lands in Europe are currently under Russian control. The Russians either seize the crop or buy it cheaply, often by force.

State companies, including the United Shipbuilding Corporation, are involved in the business; a company linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the firm of Crimean businessman Mykhailo Ganaga “Agro-frigate”, which trades with Syria and Israel and others.

It is noted that it is difficult to estimate the scale of this trade, which is conducted on the black market. According to Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Markiyan Dmytrasevich, no less than 4 million tons of grain and other products were sent directly to international markets from the occupied territories by sea, which brought $800 million in revenue.

The main export port of such products became Sevastopol in the annexed Crimea, it is also exported from occupied Berdyansk and Mariupol.

This year, the Russian authorities themselves announced that in the first half of the year they sent 15 ships with 81,000 tons of wheat to Turkey from Mariupol. The reception of vessels with products from the occupied territories is prohibited in Turkey, the country’s authorities cooperate with Kyiv in the fight against illegal trade, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reported.

Three vessels that exported large quantities of illegal grain are owned by the United Shipbuilding Corporation through a chain of companies, according to the US government. But large volumes are also sent by small ships or by land to Russia, from where they are already sold on the international market. The total value of grain exported by Russia from the occupied territories may reach $6.4 billion.

According to Iranian politicians, recent deliveries of ballistic missiles to Russia were made in exchange for grain. Tehran buys barley from Crimea at $140 per ton with a 34% discount to market prices, Kateryna Yaresko, an analyst at the Kyiv non-profit project SeaKrime, which tracks illegal supplies from Crimea, told the publication.

At the same time, analysts of the Bellingcat project discovered the flights of several vessels departing from the Sevastopol grain terminal to Iran and Syria, as well as several visits to Iran by Ihor Rudetskyi. He is the general director of Sea Maker Marine Engineering Technopolis, and he is also associated with Aval, whose Sevastopol branch operates at the Avlita grain terminal.

In July, it became known that the Russians were preparing the Mariupol port for the crossing of stolen Ukrainian grain.

Before that, it was reported that the Ministry of Agriculture of Great Britain should complete the work on the method of verification of grain originating from Ukraine by the end of August. This will make it possible to determine whether the Russians are transporting stolen grain from Ukrainian territories for sale under the guise of their grain.