<
https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-war-occupation-grain-shipments/33004062.html>
"Russian firms shipped tens of thousands of tons of wheat and peas out of
occupied parts of Ukraine in 2023 to EU member Spain, NATO member Turkey, and
Azerbaijan, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Schemes, and
its partners have found.
Similar amounts of barley and corn reached Moscow allies Iran and Syria, which
have an established track record of buying Ukrainian grain appropriated by
Russia, Schemes, the Ukrainian hacker group KibOrg, the Belarusian
Investigative Center, and Vyortska, an independent Russian-language media
outlet, determined in an investigation based on official Russian documents and
other sources.
At least 6.4 million tons of wheat alone were harvested from Russian-occupied
Crimea and Russian-held parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and
Zaporizhzhya regions in 2023, according to satellite estimates by NASA’s
Harvest program, which tracks food-security threats. SeaKrime, a
nongovernmental Ukrainian project that tracks Russia’s illegal grain shipments
from Ukraine, has reported that 2 million tons of that harvest were shipped
abroad from Crimea’s ports.
Such sales undermine Ukraine’s war-battered economy and provide Russia with
revenue to finance the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its third year.
For 2023, Schemes and its partners documented Russian sales of nearly 35,000
tons of wheat, barley, corn, and peas from the Kherson region and Crimea at
discounted customs rates.
Hacked documents from Kherson’s occupation administrators, leaked Russian
customs data, and information from the online trade database Import Genius
confirmed the role of at least four Russian companies – Agro-Fregat, Pallada,
Sim-Trans Group, and TD Fregat – in these transactions.
One of these companies, Pallada, has a remote connection to the general
contractor for construction of a massive residential complex on Russia’s Black
Sea coast known as “Putin’s palace.”
Though Russian customs and occupation-administration documents show that the
products came from the Kherson region and Crimea, rather than from Russia,
whether the buyers ever questioned the origins of the products they were
purchasing is unclear. None agreed to discuss the matter."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
