An investigative report has found that rapeseed from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine has been processed in Belarus and sold to the European Union.
The 19 February report was carried out by the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC), the Lithuanian publication 15min.lt, the Latvian television channel TV3 and Ukrainian investigative project Skhemy, supported by activist group CyberPartisans, the Community of Railway Workers of Belarus and the Ukrainian hacker community KibOrg.
BIC said that EU demand for Belarusian rapeseed oil had increased following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The oil was imported without restriction until the European Commission (EC) introduced duties on EU imports of grain, oilseeds and their processed products from Russia and Belarus on 1 July 2024.
The BIC investigation said that not all Belarusian oil sold to the EU was produced from Belarusian rapeseed, even though Belarusian rapeseed farmers had expanded their planted area and improved crop yield, producing a record crop of more than 1M tonnes in 2024.
Despite the record-breaking oilseed harvests, the director of leading Belarusian oils and fats producer Agroprodukt, Aleh Tsiasliuk, reportedly told journalists in August 2023 that the company was running short of raw materials.
“We need over 300,000 tonnes of rapeseed per year, and all of Belarus produces about 900,000 tonnes. So about 30% of the required amount has to be purchased from neighbours. Rapeseed was previously brought from Ukraine and Russia, but now only Russian supplies remain.”
Tsiasliuk did not disclose where Russia sourced the rapeseed it sold to Belarus.
However, according to data from the “Grain” Federal State Information System, provided by Ukrainian hackers from KibOrg, Agroprodukt purchased oilseeds grown in the occupied portion of Ukraine’s Kherson region in 2023.
Russian companies Veles-Agro and Agrotrade supplied the Kherson rapeseed to Agroprodukt, the BIC investigation found.
Agroprodukt nearly doubled its export of rapeseed oil to the EU from 2021 to 2022 and, in the first nine months of 2024, it earned BYN523M (almost US$161M) from exports, state media reported, citing the regional executive committee.
Eurostat statistics also show that EU countries purchased 90,400 tonnes of rapeseed oil from Belarus worth €67.7M (US$70.8M) in the first half of 2024, the main buyers being Lithuania, Latvia and Poland. The volume was four times higher and 2.6 times more in value than for all of 2021.
The Community of Railway Workers of Belarus said around 30,000 tonnes of Agroprodukt products were delivered to Lithuania in 2024, and 2,000 tonnes to Latvia.
The BIC report was part of a wider investigation investigation into the illegal transfer, processing and export of agricultural products from occupied Ukrainian territories.
For the full BIC report see link below:
From occupied Ukraine to the EU: Tracing Belarusian rapeseed oil
