Russia boosts grain exports with millions of tons stolen from occupied Ukraine
global.espreso.tv
Wed, 06 Aug 2025 14:58:00 +0300

Reuters reported the information.Last year, Russia’s so-called “new territories” but still internationally recognized as Ukrainian — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — contributed around 3% of its grain crop, helping soften a 14% national decline due to poor weather."This year we are planning to harvest about one million tons of grain, mostly wheat. We planned to do the same last year but with very bad weather conditions, first spring frosts, the drought, we collected only half a million," Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Russian-installed administration of Luhansk, told reporters including Reuters last month.At current Russian free-on-board (FOB) prices for August, this year’s estimated 1 million ton crop from Luhansk is worth about $230 million. Before separatists seized control, the region produced 1.3 million tons in 2013.Ukraine considers all grain from the four occupied regions and Crimea to be stolen by Russia and plans to urge Western allies to sanction its importers. Kyiv says Ukrainian wheat is mixed with Russian at Black Sea ports for export."Taking this season into account, we estimate that Russia has stolen 15 million tons of Ukrainian grain since the start of the full-scale war," Ukraine's Deputy Economy Minister Taras Vysotskiy told Reuters.Ukraine urged the EU to sanction Bangladesh for buying wheat from Russian-occupied regions, but the EU took no action. Traders say wheat origins can't be traced once mixed.Russian officials haven’t addressed the legal status of grain from the occupied territories. While the Agriculture Ministry includes it in reports, the stats agency and major consultancies do not, causing discrepancies.
Latest news
