International human rights law foundation Global Rights Compliance (GRC) has published a report claiming it has found evidence of pre-planning by Russia to steal more than US$1bn/year of Ukrainian grain to fund its war effort.
The report ‘Agriculture Weaponised- – the Illegal Seizure and Extraction of Ukrainian Grain by Russia’ includes information collected by GRC, in collaboration with Intelligence Management Support Services and the Centre for Information Resilience, in relation to systematic grain extraction in the provinces of Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, and the overland transport of the grain to port facilities in occupied Ukraine and Crimea.
Collected evidence indicated Russia’s detailed and expansive plan to steal 12,000 tonnes/day of grain to fund its war effort, GRC said on 16 November.
The investigation used open-source research, analysing and verifying photographs, videos, public statements by officials, and other digital data, collected between December 2021 and July 2023.
Claims made in the report included details of the preparation, set up, and implementation of a complex large-scale grain extraction infrastructure by Russia in Ukraine.
“This systematic grain extraction and seizure has taken place in the context of the broader weaponisation of Ukrainian grain by Russia, which has launched successive attacks on grain export ports throughout the war, and also in the context of Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative (BSGI) earlier this year,” the foundation said on its website.
The report also documented targeted attacks against Ukraine’s Black Sea port infrastructure carried out within hours of Russia abandoning the BSGI, which destroyed around 60,000 tonnes of grain.
Evidence taken from the report would form part of a starvation war crimes dossier to be submitted to the International Criminal Court, GRC said.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine and Britain had reached an agreement on a special mechanism for discounts on war risk insurance for exports through the Ukraine’s new Black Sea grain corridor, Reuters reported.
The new grain corridor had helped transport almost 4.4M tonnes of cargo – including 3.2M tonnes of grain – since it was set up in August, according to Ukrainian officials quoted by Reuters in a 17 November report.
Ukraine had launched the “humanitarian corridor” for ships travelling to African and Asian markets after Russia’s 17 July withdrawal from the BSGI, which had been set up in July 2022 to allow for food and fertiliser exports from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports, Reuters wrote.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was quoted as saying on 14 November that the special mechanism to allow war risk insurance discounts involved 14 insurance companies.
“It will make it possible to make a discount on the cost of insurance against military risks for exporters of all products from Ukraine. This will make the Black Sea corridor more accessible to a wider range of exporters,” Shmyhal said during the government meeting, a video of which was posted on the Telegram messaging platform.
Ukraine has said war risk insurance remained one of the critical issues for securing the safety of the route as Russia continued to target it, dropping mines close to the path, Reuters wrote.
Insurance premiums had risen sharply following a Russian attack on a Liberia-flagged civilian vessel entering port in the Odessa region in early November, killing a Ukrainian pilot and injuring four crew members, the report said. It had been the first fatal strike involving a commercial ship for months.
According to Ukrainian officials quoted in the report, the corridor continued working despite all the dangers, but brokers had reported a rise in freight prices.
“It (the attack) affects the cost of freight and the willingness of traders to buy grain from us and work with Ukraine,” Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky told national television on 13 November.
“We understand that Odessa region ports need to be protected, everyone is doing it and the situation is improving every week, and we will still export,” Solsky added.
Ukraine’s government has forecast a harvest of 79M tonnes of grain and oilseeds in 2023, with its 2023/24 exportable surplus totalling about 50M tonnes. The country has been among the world’s top suppliers of wheat, corn, barley and sunflower oil in recent years.
As of 6 November, Ukrainian grain exports had fallen to 9.8M tonnes in the July-June 2023/24 marketing season from 14.3M tonnes the previous season.
This was due to blocked Ukrainian Black Sea ports and Russian attacks on the country’s Danube River ports, according to traders and farmers unions.
Ukraine has traditionally shipped most of its exports through its deep water Black Sea ports.
Meanwhile, Russia had begun free shipments of grain totalling up to 200,000 tonnes to six African countries, Reuters reported on 17 November.
In a statement posted on Telegram, Russian agriculture minister Dmitry Patrushev said that ships headed for Burkina Faso and Somalia had left Russian ports with additional shipments to Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Mali and the Central African Republic to follow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had promised to deliver free grain to the six countries at a summit with African leaders in July, following Moscow’s withdrawal from the BSGI, Reuters wrote.
According to Putin, Russia exported around 60M tonnes of grain last year.
