“A particularly repulsive way to wage war.” The German Agriculture Minister denounced, on Friday 13 May, the theft and confiscation by Russian forces of “goods and grain in eastern Ukraine”. While the silos are full of grain and the next wheat harvest is expected in two months, kyiv has been accusing the invader for several weeks of getting their hands on crops, then trying to export them on their own.
At this stage, kyiv claims that Russian forces have “looted about 500,000 tons of grain worth $100 million”says a press release (in Ukrainian). “Tens of thousands of tons of sunflower oil have been illegally exported.” Josef Schmidhuber, senior official of the United Nations for food and agriculture (FAO), for his part gives an estimate of 700,000 tons, while agreeing that no statistical data exists to date.
kyiv denounces grain thefts
The Russian ship Matros Pozynich dropped anchor near occupied Crimea on April 27, according to information published by the American channel CNN (in English)in order to recover grain brought there from war zones further north. The crew deactivated the transponder, preventing geolocation of the bulk carrier, which was seen by satellite the following day, at the port of Sevastopol. It then crossed the Bosphorus to reach the Egyptian port of Alexandria, but the cargo was refused after an alert issued by Ukrainian diplomacy. After another failure in Beirut (Lebanon), the Matros Pozynich headed for the Syrian port of Latakia.
From Syria, “the grain can be smuggled to other countries in the Middle East”, estimates the Ukrainian internal intelligence, which evokes at least three ships concerned by this traffic. And “countries are ready to buy this grain covered in Ukrainian blood”continues Denys Marchouk, vice-president of the Ukrainian Agrarian Council.
The areas of Zaporizhia and Kherson – as well as the regions under Russian control – are the most affected. kyiv thus accuses Russia of having loaded 1,500 tonnes of cereals into trucks which took the direction of Crimea. Images show a column of trucks flocked with a “Z”, heading south. Russian forces also looted a grain storage center in Novooleksiyivsky, Kherson region, and exported grain to Crimea, writes Lyudmila Denisova (in Ukrainian), responsible for human rights in Parliament. The Ukrainian media relays several other cases.
Agricultural machinery was also stolen. Some have even been geolocated in Chechnya thanks to GPS beacons, a Melitopol entrepreneur tells CNN (in English). The latter says he managed to lock them remotely. All these acts of theft are now recorded by the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, in order to establish a basis and obtain compensation before the courts.
Farms are targeted by strikes
But cereal production also suffered from the Russian strikes. A cereal complex was destroyed in early April in Rubizhne, in the Luhansk region, accuses the local governor, Sergei Gaïdaï. “All the agricultural products stored there were destroyed: 17,000 tonnes of wheat and 8,500 tonnes of sunflower”. A grain elevator was also hit by a rocket in early May in Sinelnikovo, Dnipropetrovsk region, according to local governor Valentyn Reznichenko. By the end of March, at least six grain storage facilities had been damaged in the east of the country, according to two US government images seen by Reuters*.
“We were hit several times by the Russians”, also explains Volodymyr Reva, director of a 3,500-hectare agricultural enterprise in the Kharkhiv region. A sniper shot one of the employees, according to his testimony, and the beasts had to be released so as not to endanger more people. The company first distributed flour to the inhabitants, but now it does not know what to do with the grain stocks that cannot be sold due to the damage to the infrastructure. Only ten employees remained, compared to 100 before the war, according to this testimony which could not be independently confirmed.
From now on, the demining of exploitations constitutes “a very big problem, very urgent”. Volodymyr Reva had five missiles on his farm and deminers still could not access the area at the time of his intervention. “Regions that were recently liberated from occupation (Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv) have a lot of ammunition in the fields”explains Denys Marchouk. “The occupiers deliberately destroyed the property of the agricultural enterprises. This is why the sowing is much slower there, because the soldiers and experts must first come and clear the land.”
Port blocking makes exporting difficult
The Russian army has set up a total blockade of the Ukrainian coasts, which deprives the ports of Odessa and Mykolaiv, as well as the river port of Kherson, of any outlet. As a result, Ukraine is trying to transport its production overland, via 13 border crossings with Poland, Romania, Hungary and Moldova. In a more marginal way, it also uses the waterway by taking the Danube (ports of Ust-Dunaysk, Izmaïl, Reni, Kiliya).
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But these alternative solutions are not sufficient: some 24,000 wagons of wheat and oil are currently blocked, explained on franceinfo Adalbert Jahnz, spokesperson for the European Commission for Transport. The track gauge is not the same between Ukraine and Europe, and the necessary transhipment operations are long and costly. A total of 25 million tonnes of foodstuffs are waiting to leave the country before July, in anticipation of the next harvest. “It’s a huge challenge”adds Adalbert Jahnz: a 600 meter long train transports about 1,900 tonnes of grain.
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Despite an increase in speed, cereal wagons already had a waiting time of sixteen days on average at the end of April, according to a professional in the sector quoted by the firm APK-Inform (in Ukrainian). “Europe’s transport system and transshipment capacities will not be able to transport 70 million tonnes of Ukrainian grain every year by land”, summarizes Valery Tkachev. The maximum land capacity is instead estimated at around 1.1 million tonnes of grain per month and 250,000 tonnes of sunflower oil, according to Roman Slaston, director general of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club. Ukraine is at an impasse, concedes its president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Russia has blocked all trade routes, and we cannot export our wheat. They are occupying our ports, exporting our goods.”
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraineat Fox News
The head of the United Nations World Food Program, David Beasley, therefore called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to unblock Odessa and other ports in Ukraine. “Millions of people around the world will die because these ports are blocked”, he said at a conference in New York, according to comments reported by CNN *. And according to Politico*, some elected Americans are also asking the American President, Joe Biden, to establish a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea, in order to circumvent the Russian blockade.
Storage capacities have been reached
Time is running out before the next harvest. “We have over 20 million tons of unsold merchandise, and only one million tons were exported in April”explains Denys Marchouk, interviewed by the Lithuanian channel LRT (in Ukrainian). “In two months we start the winter harvest cycle. And our warehouses are full.”
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“We still have a month and a half to two months to increase exports while finding opportunities to store these crops.”
Denys Marchouk, vice-president of the Ukrainian Agrarian Councilat the Lithuanian channel LRT
Ukraine’s total storage capacity is 75 million tonnes, according to specialist firm APK-Inform* – 61 million tonnes excluding conflict zones. The next harvest is therefore likely to be disrupted, due to a lack of grain storage. If exports do not pick up again, around 20% of the areas sown will not be able to be harvested this summer, according to an estimate by Jakob Kern, emergency coordinator for the World Food Program in Ukraine. This could further increase tensions on the markets, resulting in price increases on many products.