Russian grain theft from Ukraine threatens another famine

Russian forces are stealing huge amounts of grain from areas of Ukraine under their control, in what Ukrainian authorities have denounced as “food terrorism” reminiscent of the country’s man-made famine on the 1930s that killed millions of people.

Reports from south and east Ukraine indicate the Russian occupiers are targeting agriculture, with farmers struggling to carry out spring harvest.

The Ukrainian government says 400,000 tonnes of grain have been stolen from occupied Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, about a third of the amount that was stored before the war. This is on top of the theft of tractors, harvesters and other equipment and the targeting of grain silos by artillery and missile attacks.

 “We see that the occupiers indeed act as looters,” Denys Marchuk of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council said. “We can consider them as food terrorists who, by stealing from others, try to sell products across the world and secure their country’s own needs. We probably need to raise the issue of a grain embargo in addition to an oil embargo.”

Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s human rights ombudswoman, said Russian forces were trying to bring about a new “Holodomor” — the Great Famine that killed up to ten million Ukrainians in 1932-33. It was caused by Stalin’s collectivisation of agriculture that forced private farmers off their land and led to a huge fall in productivity.

 “The heirs of the organisers of the Holodomor of the 1930s are again trying to organise a genocide of the Ukrainian people through a banal robbery,” she wrote. “Stealing of food from occupied territories is a violation of the 1949 Geneva convention for the protection of civilians in war and war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

Ukraine, the “bread basket of Europe”, is one of the most fertile countries in the world, but the theft of crops is only one of its problems.

Russian troops in the occupied city of Melitopol stole high-tech combine harvesters and shipped them to Chechnya, only to find that the “smart” vehicles had been locked remotely.

Many fields in the north from which Russian forces withdrew in March are sown with mines and booby traps. Fertiliser prices are soaring worldwide, after Russia, one of the biggest manufacturers, told producers to stop exports in retaliation for western sanctions.

Some farmers and farm workers have joined the army. There are shortages of veterinary medicines and animal feed. Lorries are being diverted from agriculture and into the war effort. Perishables cannot be delivered to markets so some dairy farmers have to throw away milk.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates this year’s harvest will be 20 per cent lower than normal; some estimates predict 30 per cent. This will not only have a serious effect on the ability of Ukraine to feed itself but also on people across the world who depend on Ukrainian exports.