By Murad Rakhimov | 2024-09-18

KYIV -- Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's agriculture sector has been a target of Russian aggression.

Russian missiles and drones strike warehouses and set fields aflame, and aided by occupation authorities, Russian companies are reselling stolen Ukrainian grain abroad.

These actions constitute a war crime, say analysts.

In a recent example, a Russian missile hit a civilian freighter in the Black Sea carrying wheat to Egypt, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said September 12, calling on the world to condemn Moscow's attacks on food shipments.

Earlier, overnight from August 31 to September 1, a Russian missile hit a column of grain trucks in Sumy province.

The strike killed a 23-year-old truck driver and injured four other persons. One truck caught fire, and 20 others were damaged.

After Russia's failed blitzkrieg in 2022, the Kremlin shifted to a war of attrition, said Alisher Ilkhamov, director of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence center.

The strategy of warring on Ukrainian ports and grain ships foundered "after Ukraine's counterattack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet and military facilities in Crimea," he told Kontur.

Theft and resale of Ukrainian grain

Meanwhile, some countries are buying grain that Russia stole from occupied territories.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)'s Schemes (Skhemy) project, the Belarusian Investigative Center and the outlet Verstka, assisted by Ukrainian hackers from KibOrg, investigated the theft of grain from the occupied part of Kherson province.

In December 2022 -- three months after Russia's illegal annexation of four Ukrainian provinces -- the Russian government set quotas for exporting agricultural products from the occupied territories with a customs discount, and it established a mechanism for exporting them.

Russian companies wanting to participate must apply to the relevant province's puppet governor.

In 2023, several Russian exporters shipped at least 34,000 tons of grain worth €6.2 million out of Kherson province and Crimea, RFE/RL reported in June.

Buyers included Azerbaijan, Türkiye, Syria and Iran.

Russia is using the ports of occupied Crimea and of the Sea of Azov for these shipments, said Denys Marchuk, a Kyiv-based agricultural observer.

"Then they hastily mix batches with Russian grain, and then it's supposedly legalized, even though in reality half of the cargo is stolen Ukrainian grain," he told Kontur.

When Syria, Iran and African nations buy the grain, "Russia is forcing them to take a neutral stance on the war or to support the Kremlin in this aggression," Marchuk said.

Since May 2023, at least three freighters were filmed while taking on pilfered grain in occupied Mariupol, Bihus.Info reported.

They steamed to Rostov-on-Don and ports in the Sea of Azov and the Caucasus, according to tracking services.

Drones against farmers

About 18% of Ukrainian farmland is occupied by the Russians, while farmers have temporarily idled another 6% because of fighting, according to Kyiv.

Many fields are practically incinerated from regular shelling. Ukrainian forces found some liberated farmland to be mined or strewn with explosives.

"Arson is being committed on fields near the front line," Marchuk said. "The adversary is deliberately launching drones on them, and these drones carry a munition that destroys crops."

That is what happened to Viktoriya Pavlovska-Kravchuk and her husband, who own 2,800 hectares of land in Balakliia district, Kharkiv province.

"Our land was in the line of fire," she told Kontur. "Bombs set the wheat on fire."

"The farm was occupied from February to September 2022. During that time, the Russian occupiers stole more than a million dollars' worth of grain and seeds from our family," she said.

They are still restoring their farm and trying to replace the stolen and destroyed grain and the agricultural equipment that Russians wrecked.

The explosion at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in June 2023 exacted a major toll on the water supply and impaired the functioning of irrigation systems in southern Ukraine, Marchuk said.

"Once we win the war, we'll need to think about how to rebuild the Kakhovka Reservoir and once again make these provinces economically strong thanks in part to agriculture," Marchuk said.

According to Marchuk's calculations, before the war, Ukraine had the capability to grow about 100 million tons of grain per year. Last year, the country grew 82 million tons, and this season's harvest is expected to be about 73 million tons.

Food security extortion

Before the invasion, Ukraine was the world's sixth-largest grower of corn and seventh-largest grower of wheat.

By 2022, agriculture comprised about 10% of Ukraine's GDP, and 42% of its exports.

Ukraine has reinstated the bulk of its grain exports, but now the Kremlin deliberately hits farms and transport facilities, said Ilkhamov of Central Asia Due Diligence.

"If the West doesn't cope with this challenge, it can expect to see complications with the Global South ... These countries will demand a quick end to the war, and on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's terms," Ilkhamov said.

Moreover, if Russia blocks grain from Ukraine, starving migrants could depart Asia and Africa for the European Union, he said.

Ukrainian Ambassador to Uzbekistan Mykola Doroshenko pointed out that Zelenskyy launched the Grain from Ukraine initiative in November 2022 to ensure grain for African and Asian countries.

The ambassador noted how Ukraine ended the Russian blockade of the Black Sea.

"Ukraine was able to liberate the Black Sea corridor using sea drones and other equipment, and since then it has exported more than 60 million tons of cargo," Doroshenko told Kontur.

"The corridor is open. It's been liberated."