Bitter Harvest How Putin's Cronies 'Loot' Bumper Ukrainian Grain Crop

Russia's farmers are achieving record grain harvests, according to official figures. But the numbers published by Vladimir Putin's government appear to conceal the contribution to this bumper crop made by another set of farmers: those in occupied Ukraine.

- Tom Burgis Kherson Pjotr Sauer

Ukrainian officials and agriculture experts have claimed favourable conditions are not enough to explain the giant harvest. They say instead that Ukrainian grain is being exported disguised as Russian produce.

The occupation authorities are "looting" Ukrainian grain, prosecutors alleged in one case against a suspected collaborator, "not for military operations or to meet the needs of the population but for selfish purposes and for motives of personal illegal profit".

Farms are brought under occupation through brutal means, according to prosecutors and a witness, while grain production allegedly flows to Russian companies, including one with connections to Putin's inner circle.

In May, the UK announced "a crackdown on the shady individuals and entities connected to the theft and resale of Ukrainian grain", placing sanctions on those it said were shipping grain out of occupied territory "badged as Russian goods".

But western powers have avoided imposing blanket restrictions on Russian food exports as they have done with other goods such as oil.

"It's not enough," said Vladyslav Vlasyuk, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency and the deputy head of Task Force UA, an interagency group tracing and confiscating assets of those under sanctions.

The Russians have a simple business model in occupied Ukraine, he said: "They just get all the grain they can, make forged documents [saying] it came from Russia, then they export it." Mike Lee, a consultant on crop production in the former Soviet Union, calculated that more than a fifth of the 29m tonnes of grain expected from Ukraine's most recent harvest was missing. As much as 5m tonnes may have been stolen by the Russians, he said, with the rest lost to war.