Russian occupants have already stolen 400-500 thousand tons of grain in Ukraine, which is sent to the temporarily occupied Crimea. This statement was made at a briefing by Ukrainian Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Nikolay Solskyy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has developments on the seizure and confiscation of grain with the help of Western partners and will announce them soon.
"We see that somewhere around 400-500 thousand tons is what they send in the direction of Crimea in an organized way... There is parallel work related to the fact that it is possible to promptly arrest and confiscate grain with the help of our Western partners. This line is being pursued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are certain developments there. When there will be a decision, they will announce it," the Minister said.
The official notes that the export of grain is a big "business" run by people of a higher level than those who steal TV sets. Workers of the special services of the aggressor country and all kinds of swindlers are engaged in this business.
"The cars are going in the direction of the Crimea. Crimea this season, even when we controlled it, was already importing grain as standard. Given that they have not grown it for the past few years, all the more they need grain for domestic consumption. And, in addition, they are fine-tuning the channels for loading ships through Sevastopol," Solsky said.
In his opinion, practically all ships carrying grain from Sevastopol are ships with stolen Ukrainian grain. Because there is no reasonable approach to spend extra money to move it from the continental part of Russia and load it through Sevastopol, if it can be loaded through Novorossiysk.
"There were already such facts, to which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly responded. The ships turned from Egypt towards Lebanon/Syria. In principle, we roughly understand the local traders, as well as people in Russia who are involved in this, and the information is already being reported to the relevant authorities. As far as I know, the prosecutor's office has either already registered or is preparing to register these things and there will be appropriate international reactions," he added.
