An investigation found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a Russian-run operation that has smuggled Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
The cargo ship Mikhail Nenashev sails past Istanbul, Turkey, on July 4, 2022. An Associated Press investigation shows the ship, owned by a sanctioned Russian state-owned defense contractor, is part of an extensive Russian-run smuggling operation that has been hauling stolen Ukrainian grain from ports in occupied Crimea to customers in the Middle East.
AP used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. Reporters reviewed shipping manifests, searched social media posts, and interviewed farmers, shippers and corporate officials to uncover the details of the massive smuggling operation.
The Russians “have an absolute obligation to ensure that civilians are cared for and to not deprive them their ability of a livelihood and an ability to feed themselves,” said David Crane, a veteran prosecutor who has been involved in numerous international war crime investigations. “It’s just pure pillaging and looting, and that is also an actionable offense under international military law.”
As he spoke, a masked soldier armed with an assault rifle stood guard as trucks unloaded wheat at the facility to be milled. Workers loaded flour into large white bags like those delivered by the Laodicea to Lebanon three weeks later. Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov told AP the occupiers are moving vast quantities of grain from the region by train and truck to ports in Russia and Crimea, a strategic Ukrainian peninsula that Russia has occupied since 2014. Despite Russian claims to have annexed Crimea, the United Nations ruled that land grab was also illegal.
The Kremlin has denied stealing any grain, but Russia’s state-run news agency Tass reported on June 16 that Ukrainian grain was being trucked to Crimea, resulting in long lines at border checkpoints. Tass later reported that grain from Melitopol had arrived in Crimea and that additional shipments were expected, bound for customers in the Middle East and Africa.
A spokesman for Loyal Agro said the company took delivery of 5,000 tons of flour and the rest of the ship’s cargo went to Tartus, Syria. Syriamar didn’t respond to emails to its headquarters in Latakia, Syria. A call to the phone number on the company’s website went unanswered. During a typical voyage in mid-June, a 170-meter-long ship called the Mikhail Nenashev was captured on satellite being loaded at the Russian-controlled Avlita Grain Terminal in Sevastopol, Crimea, while its radio transponder was turned off. The ship’s crew turned the signal back on two days later while underway in the Black Sea.
“Illegally falsifying documentation is a tactic used by bad actors to disguise the origin of the goods they are transporting, be it for the purpose of evading sanctions, trafficking illicit goods, or other crimes,” said Daniel, a former Israeli naval officer. Days before Russia launched its February invasion, his 140-meter-long superyacht , the Ocean Victory, cruised from Dubai to the Maldives, a remote archipelago in the Indian Ocean where the government hasn’t enforced Western sanctions. Ocean Victory’s crew turned off its radio transponder on March 1, and the $300 million party barge has been running dark ever since.
“It is a very low price, and our farmers don’t understand what they can do,” said Fedorov, who evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory after the invasion but keeps in touch with people back home. High demand for grain makes it easy for Russians to find buyers, said Oleg Nivievskyi, assistant professor and vice president for economics education at the Kyiv School of Economics.Yayla Agro, which makes packaged dried goods and ready-to-eat meals regularly stocked on the shelves of Turkish supermarkets, said it bought 8,800 metric tons of corn delivered by the Russian ship Fedor to the Turkish port of Bandirma on June 17. The cargo would be worth about $2.7 million.
Yayla also confirmed purchasing 7,000 metric tons of corn from another Russian ship, SV. Nikolay, on June 24. Satellite imagery shows the ship had docked at the grain terminal in Sevastopol six days earlier, but the company said its documentation showing the grain had come from Kavkaz.___
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