Where does Russia take the grain stolen in Ukraine?
- Nick Beek, Maria Koreniuk and the Reality Check team
- BBC
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Evidence is mounting that Russian troops in the occupied natural areas of Ukraine are systematically stealing grain and other products from local farmers. The BBC spoke to farmers and analyzed satellite imagery and shipping data to get insights into what is happening to the grain.
A few tens of kilometers from the front line, Ukrainian farmer Dmitry tells how the business he developed for 25 years was lost in four months of Russian occupation.
BBC on the impact on more than 200 farmers now found in the occupied area. “They stole our premises. They destroyed our premises, they destroyed our equipment,” he destroyed our premises.
He says Russian troops currently occupy 80% of the existing thousands of hectares he is considering and accuses them of stealing industrial-scale facilities. We have sorted out some of the details in the picture, for the owners of the farm owners. that they went first south to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and then to Russia.
According to the tracking data, both trucks were aimed at a warehouse, which was identified as a place for unloading and storing the seizure, in the Crimean settlement of Oktyabrskoye.
A satellite image from June 14 this year shows a line of trucks on the road next to such a benefit.
The storage is located next to the railway line, through which grain can be transported either to Russia or to the ports of the Southern Crimea. The roof of the building appears to have a Z symbol painted on it.
Lines at the border
It is very difficult to trace an identified shipment of stolen seizures, but there is not a significant proportion of the majority of it going to Crimea first. On satellite images at two checkpoints – in Chongar and Armyansk – the detection of cars, the use for the sale of other types of agricultural products.
A picture taken in Chongar on June 17 shows a truck rope over 5 km long.
Such a high traffic speed is unusual for Crimea: Ukraine has not had access to the area since it was annexed by Russia in 2014 and exports grain and other products from other ports.
part of the cost is due to the fact that after the delivery of supplies of the ground forces of empty trucks, a return from the occupied aircraft is possible. However, it is more likely that many of the trucks are carrying grain or other products, such as sunflower seeds seized from Ukrainian farmers.
Trucks waiting on a road with a granary and a railway station close up in satellite imagery of the city of Dzhankoy in Crimea.
In the image, in the parking lot next to the storage, there are freight trains formed from wagons that are subject to consideration for the sale and withdrawal of products.
The railway from Dzhankoy goes to the ports of Sevastopol and Kerch, from where the grain can be taken to Russia or for delivery.
Where is the Ukrainian grain from the Crimea being transported?
“They take grain first to the annexed Crimea, from where to the ports of Kerch or Sevastopol, from where they load Ukrainian grain to a Russian court and go to the Kerch Strait,” says Andriy Klymenko, head of the Institute for Scientific Research in Kyiv, who regularly monitors the movement of ships around Crimea.
“In the Kerch Strait [между Крымом и Россией]they reload Ukrainian grain with small vessels onto dry cargo ships, where it is typical with grain from Russia, and sometimes sail into this area just to make it look like they are loaded with medium grain,” he restored.
According to Klimenko, this grain is exported with religious certificates, from which it follows that it was produced in Russia.
The ships then often headed for Syria or Turkey.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Turkish authorities were investigating the allegation of sending a Ukrainian executive body to Turkey and have not yet found any evidence.
“We saw that Russia is indicated in the documents as the port of departure of ships and the origin of goods,” he said.
Unusual level of activity in Sevastopol
Satellite imagery of the Avlita grain terminal in the port of Sevastopol in western Crimea shows a high level of activity throughout June. Judging by the yellow color of the product being loaded onto several vessels, it could be grain.
We have reviewed satellite imagery of this terminal in June over the past few years and this level of activity seems to be unusually high.
Some experts believe that this activity can only be explained by grain exported from mainland Ukraine. “In God of Observations, Crimea doesn’t grow many export commodities,” says Maria, an agrarian verification expert at the Kyiv School of Economics.
It is also unprofitable for Russia to export through Sevastopol and receive grain.
But Mike Leigh, an agricultural expert at Green Square Agro who has worked both in Ukraine and in Russia, believes that some of the consumption coming from Crimea could be leftovers from last year’s harvest stored in warehouses due to the war.
“Crimea is under Russian control, but there are also chains of connections,” he recalls.
Ships turn off transponders
US authorities and some media outlets have issued calls to ships believed to be carrying stolen Ukrainian grain for shipment.
assigning data to Lloyd’s List Intelligence (an interactive online service that provides information, including on the transportation of ships), the BBC since April tracking these ships plying between Crimea and the ports of Turkey and the security service.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence reports that ships are cut off from on-board sensors indicating the ship’s location when entering the Black Sea or when maneuvering in the Kerch Strait near Crimea.
By the time their transponders are back on, the ships are heading south. The sensors also report a greater draft, which can be interpreted as the fact that at the time when the transponders did not work, the ships took on cargo.
The BBC has mapped the routes of three ships: “Matros Pozynich” and “Sormovsky 48”, occupying their expenses with the company in Russia, as well as “Phoenicia”, occupying the Ministry’s General Maritime Directorate.
We found messages registered in Russia by ship owners to find out the details of the message, but did not receive a response. We were unable to get through to the royal shipowners.
Despite some gaps, it is possible to establish where these ships have been from satellite images.
In the pictures of the company Maxar “Matros Pozynich” was found in Sevastopol in mid-May. During this voyage, he passed through the Kerch Strait, his transponder turned off for five days, and then turned off again – already hundreds of nautical miles to the south in the Black Sea. Later, the ship was photographed in the Syrian port of Latakia – its transponder was turned off again.
Under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), ships must be permanently equipped with devices that have a high probability of their position and course, unless this poses a danger to their safety – for example, due to piracy.
Michel Wiese Bockmann, editor at Lloyd’s, believes there is no reason to turn off transponders near Crimea or East East does not exist.
“This practice is clearly not linked to the risks of piracy,” Bockmann says.
Russia’s new tactics
The BBC also received documents, compound sectoral occupational expenditure accounts, from nearby farms where the grain is to be transferred.
A separate BBC investigation found that, in some cases, Ukrainian farmers are selling grain at prices well below market and identifiable documents confirming that it was purchased “legally”.
At the beginning of the second report, the cases of outright theft of state administration by the military were mainly reported. However, farmers now believe that the tactics have changed: the Russians get the harvest, that if they are not responsible for the grain, future crops may suffer from sabotage.
Farmers say they enjoy putting up with low prices: they need to buy fuel and hunt.
Emily Pottle, a district law attorney, told the BBC that these actions may violate the Geneva Convention on Rules and Supervision of Judgment governing actions to occupy powers.
We have contacted the public but have not yet received a response.
However, officials in the Russian-controlled territories are protected from the fact that Ukrainian grain is exported from the territory of the United States.
Featuring Hannah Cyba, Sira Tieri and Hannah Chornous in Ukraine and Daniele Palumbo, Josh Cheetham, Jake Horton, Erwan Rivo and Andrey Zakharov in London.
On October 8, 2021, the Russian authorities entered the BBC correspondent Andrey Zakharov into the register of media outlets acting as a foreign agent. On January 17, 2022, this status was suspended by a court decision until the completion of the process on the lawsuit filed by Andrei.
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