Putin allies fight over Ukraine’s stolen grain

President Putin’s Kremlin allies are wrestling with one another for control of the lucrative grain trade in occupied Ukraine, according to an intelligence report obtained by The Times.

Analysis in the highly detailed briefing, prepared for senior Ukrainian intelligence chiefs, argues that the outcome of the power struggle will be key to determining the fate of two Britons captured by Russia while fighting for Ukraine and sentenced to death.

Based on field reports by Ukrainian agents behind enemy lines, it lays out how an isolated Putin is increasingly relying on the former Russian prime minister Sergei Kiriyenko, his deputy chief of staff, to execute his orders. Putin’s blessing has allowed the aide to take control of occupied regions and build a structure to serve his interests.

Kiriyenko, 59, travelled to Donbas between June 6 and 8, visiting the port of Berdyansk and Donetsk and Luhansk, a Ukrainian intelligence official said. He appointed several allies to key positions in the self-proclaimed republics in that time, replacing officials chosen by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s former ideologist, who is out of favour.

“Sergei Kiriyenko is cementing his power by appointing personnel,” the five-page intelligence briefing reads. “The personnel of Surkov were substituted by the Kiriyenkovs — all the newly appointed belong to his technocratic movement.

 “Kiriyenko is interested in port logistics, because the issue of grain export remains a priority for Russia.”

Control of the precious commodity could make Kiriyenko enormously wealthy. Russian officials receive huge kickbacks from the markets they oversee, with corrupt schemes funnelling money to the top of a pyramid of bureaucrats.

Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, harvesting 86 million tonnes of grain last year. Russian forces now occupy about a fifth of Ukraine’s vast territory, including the water-rich Kherson region and fertile fields of Donbas. Countries in Africa and the Middle East are particularly dependent on Ukrainian shipments, which have been blockaded by Russia’s Black Sea fleet since the war began in February. That has caused grain prices to rise by a third and prompted UN officials to warn of a global food shortage.

The US believes that Russia may already have expropriated as much as 500,000 tonnes of Ukrainian grain, worth $100 million, and loaded it on to ships in Crimea. The peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, is considered a federal republic in Moscow and therefore outside of Kiriyenko’s purview.

 “Kiriyenko will clearly break the current scheme of illegal export of products through the Crimea — he needs personal effectiveness and rapid achievements,” the briefing continues.

Kiriyenko’s power move comes as he seeks to consolidate his position in Moscow at the expense of Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Duma, and Dmitry Medvedev, the former president and now deputy head of Russia’s Security and Defence Council.

The report points to the sudden resignation of five Russian regional governors on May 10 and 11 and legislative changes shifting powers from different government institutions to the president’s office as evidence of a struggle within the Kremlin.

“Volodin’s camp is losing governors, entire institutions,” it reads. “Institutions that Volodin could influence before can now be used against him.”

The intelligence suggests that Kiriyenko wants to reduce the intensity of the fighting in Ukraine to focus on developing the tattered economies of captured regions, while Volodin is intent on a hardline approach, prolonging the conflict to seize more territory.

If Volodin gains the upper hand, threats to execute Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, two British fighters captured serving with the Ukrainian armed forces, are more likely to be carried out, the authors believe. Kiriyenko would be more likely to use the captives to negotiate the easing of western sanctions, allowing Russia to sell grain from the occupied territories.

A report on Monday by the Russian independent media outlet Meduza suggested that Kiriyenko’s opponents were beginning to strike back by implying he had overstepped his powers to the extent he was now rivalling Putin himself.

On Sunday an article headlined “Sergei Kiriyenko’s Address on the Day of Russia” appeared on the website of Izvestia, a leading Russian newspaper, in which he appeared to pledge that “the whole of Russia will rebuild the Donbas destroyed by the fascists — trillions of roubles will be spent on this, which will be allocated from the Russian budget — even at the cost of a temporary decrease in the country’s standard of living”.

The article was removed shortly afterwards, with Kiriyenko denying he had written it. Sources close to the Kremlin told Meduza they suspected it had been placed there by his political opponents in an attempt to damage his reputation.