The Financial Times published an investigation in which, using the example of one vessel, it showed how Russia trades stolen Ukrainian grain from the Zaporizhzhia region.
One of the leaders of the operation to steal agricultural products is Nikita Busel, the founder of two hotels and a chain of coffee shops in Russia. Until the summer, the businessman was in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia region, where he was elected general director of the so-called State Grain Operator in Berdyansk.
This company resells grain stolen from warehouses or fields of local farmers. They even started an advertising campaign where Busel invited farmers to "cooperate" by selling grain through delivery points at a set price. In the promotional video, he stands in front of a Russian train being filled with Ukrainian grain. The voice-over notes that "buyers of the grain were found in Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran."
Owners and managers of Ukrainian agribusinesses who fled the occupied region reported that this company resells grain stolen from their warehouses or harvested from fields they previously owned.
"They seized our warehouses... Farmers have no choice: either hand over the grain, or they will take it from you," said the head of one expropriated Berdyan enterprise.
"State grain operator" is still working, because every week it publishes lists of prices per ton, according to which it "buys" agricultural products from local farmers. In August, local authorities said that the region exports about 5,000 tons of grain per day by rail and about 1,500-2,000 tons by road.
The investigation says that the Russians used the Powell ship, which is probably owned by the fictitious British company Powell Shipping Co LLP LLPCo, to export 2,675 tons of wheat. It was loaded in Berdyansk, but it was recorded in the documents that it was allegedly in the Russian port of Kavkaz, located in the Kerch Strait.
Another Russian businessman, Igor Pozhidayev, and his company "Geos" were identified as the grain seller. He traded grain in occupied Crimea for many years. In a comment to the FT, Pozhidayev admitted that his business transported grain but categorically denied its Ukrainian origin.
"This grain has nothing to do with Zaporizhzhia or Ukraine. This concerns the port of Kavkaz, and we have all relevant documents, starting from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and ending with contracts with farmers from whom I bought grain," said the businessman.
Already on September 3, this vessel arrived in the port of Samsun (Turkey), where they wanted to sell the grain to the Azerbaijani businessman Akbar Asgarov, but the deal failed.
After that, the ship moved a little along the coast to the small seaside Turkish town of Sinop. In a few weeks, Powell appeared in the eastern part of the Black Sea, but there was no more grain in it.
The final destination on September 26 was the small eastern Turkish port of Hopa near the border with Georgia.
"Eventually, I sold the cargo. It is sold, and the Turks are quite satisfied with the Russian documents I gave them. What you are digging — what was it in Berdyansk? Itʼs all nonsense," said Pozhidayev.