Russians could steal hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of grain from Ukraine - Ministry of Agriculture

SERHII MELNYK, "ECONOMICHNA PRAVDA" —  SUNDAY, 1 MAY 2022, 16:10

Russian invaders have already exported several hundred thousand tons of grain from the temporarily occupied territories in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

This was announced by the First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, Taras Vysotskyi, on the 24/7 national newscast. 

"The Russians are using early twentieth-century tactics to steal grain and export it from Ukraine. Today we have confirmed the fact that several hundred thousand tons of grain were exported from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk regions," Vysotskyi said.

According to Vysotskyi, in these areas there are about 1.5 million tons of grain in farm stocks intended for sowing as well as for processing (to make flour, bake bread).

"This is a significant stock. It is worth hundreds of millions of dollars at international prices. And there is a significant risk that it will simply be stolen and taken away for use by Russia," he said.

The website of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory of the Russian Federation had published a text about plans to "expropriate the surplus harvest of farmers in the Kherson region."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine emphasised that such a decision by the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory is nothing more than a direct continuation of the criminal policy of the Soviet government responsible for the Holodomor [catastrophic famine] of 1932-1933 and the mass artificial hunger of 1921-1923 and 1946-1947.