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ISTANBUL: Ukraine has asked Turkey to help investigate three Russian-flagged ships as part of Kyiv’s efforts to investigate allegations of theft of grain from Russian-held territory, according to official documents.
In a letter dated June 13, which was not previously reported, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office asked the Turkish Justice Ministry to investigate and provide evidence on the three designated ships that were suspected to have been recently captured. were allegedly involved in the transportation of stolen grain from Ukrainian territories, such as Kherson.
The letter, reviewed by Reuters, said the ships traveled from Crimea’s main grain terminal in Sevastopol in April and May and pressured Ankara to obtain documents about their cargo and arrival at Turkish ports. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

According to Equsys, a shipping database, all three large dry bulk carriers – Mikhail Nenyashev, Matros Pozinich and Matros Koshka – are owned by a subsidiary of the Western-sanctioned Russian state-owned company United Shipbuilding Corporation. The Russian company did not respond to a request for comment.
If it is established that United Shipbuilding Corporation has been transporting grain from recently occupied Ukrainian territory, it would add to emerging evidence of involvement in exports by Russian-state-owned entities, most notably Kyiv’s. It is alleged that it is stolen goods. Ukraine has publicly accused Moscow of stealing grain since the February invasion; Russia has repeatedly denied that it has stolen any Ukrainian grain.
The conflict in Ukraine has raised concerns about food security in Ukraine and around the world, driving world food prices to record levels this year. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, but has struggled to export goods with war erupting on its southern coast and many of its ports blocked. According to official figures, the share of cereals in the country’s total exports is about one-fifth.
Reuters was unable to determine the origin or final destination of the grain in the ships named by Kyiv in the letter.
The Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment. Kirill Stremosov, deputy head of the Russian-established administration in Kherson, said grain from the region was going to Crimea and local farmers were responsible for transporting it there. He said he had no information about any shipments to Turkey or the Middle East.
Reuters reported on Friday that Kyiv, in a separate letter dated June 30, asked Turkey’s Ministry of Justice to detain and arrest another Russian-flagged ship, which it said was in the occupied port of Berdyansk. From Ukrainian grain. On Monday, a senior Turkish official said Turkey had intercepted the cargo ship and was investigating Ukraine’s claim.
NATO member Turkey, which has good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, has criticized the invasion but also rejected Western sanctions on Russia. Ankara has agreed with Ukraine to block commercial shipments between Crimea and Turkey since 2014.
Also, Turkey has played an important role in discussions between the United Nations, Russia and Ukraine on a possible Black Sea Corridor to export grain from Ukraine.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on two of Kyiv’s letters and referred to recent comments by Turkey’s Foreign Ministry that it had investigated Ukraine’s public claims that grain stolen by Russia made its way to Turkey. and determined there was no problem.
“We saw that the port of departure of the ships and the origin of the goods is Russia on record,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Kavusoglu told reporters on June 23. “We are against Ukraine’s grain or other goods being taken by Russia … and we will not allow these goods to come to us.” The foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the ship from Berdysk, which arrived in Turkey late last week.
A Turkish diplomatic source said Kyiv had shared with Ankara its claims of allegedly bringing stolen grain to Turkey via Russian ships and that cooperation with Ukrainian authorities was continuing.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Taras Vysotsky, the first deputy to Ukraine’s agriculture minister, told Reuters that Kyiv is estimated to have exported about 400,000 tons of stolen grain. Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey, Vasil Bodnar, told Reuters that Ukraine believes most of them have gone to Turkey and that Kyiv has sent as evidence on the involvement of 13 ships to Turkish authorities.
The letter dated 13 June stated that at least two ships had switched off tracking systems that were openly circulated before entering the port of Sevastopol.
It also said that Kyiv suspected grain was being taken from the recently occupied area, especially Kherson, where it said there were several grain lifts which the owners do not have access to due to the occupation. It did not identify the owners. Kyiv said in the letter that it was investigating criminal violations of Ukraine’s rules and customs of war, without naming the individuals.
Ukraine’s embassy in Beirut told Reuters that at least seven companies that have storage units in the newly occupied territory have filed criminal cases with Ukrainian authorities, accusing Russia of stealing their wheat. Two companies, Ukrlandfarming and the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine, confirmed to Reuters that they had submitted a document to Ukrainian authorities but declined to provide details. Others did not respond to requests for comment.
Ukraine has also said that Russia has sent wheat allegedly stolen from Ukraine since the attack in February to its ally Syria. Ukraine’s embassy in Beirut told Reuters that at least 150,000 tons of what it said were “stolen” wheat made in Syria since February, mostly on Russian ships, without specifying how it knows.
Neither the Syrian Ports Authority, which is part of the Ministry of Transport, nor the Syrian Ministry of Information responded to requests for comment.

Turkey Trips
One of the ships named in the June 13 letter, the 169-metre-long Mikhail Nenyashev, was at Sevastopol’s Avalita grain terminal from June 14 to 16, according to satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs PBC, a private satellite operator, which shows That the ship is standing next to grain silos with cranes on top.
According to Refinitiv Eikon ship-tracking data, the ship reached Iskenderun, Turkey, eight days later. Photos and video supplied by Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst and head of the Bosphorus Observer consultancy Yoruk Isik show port cranes lifting a golden, grain-like cargo from Mikhail Nenyashev into trucks on June 27 from the images. Near Dortyol port.
According to satellite imagery and ship-tracking data, since March, Mikhail Nenyashev has visited the Sevastopol grain terminal on at least three other occasions before arriving in Turkey between 5 and 15 days.
In one instance, it unloaded 27,000 tonnes of wheat at the Turkish port of Dariens on 22 April, according to data from Refinitiv Eikon, which showed the cargo was loaded in Sevastopol, Crimea. Ukraine said in its June 13 letter that Mikhail Nenyashev had loaded 27,500 tonnes of grain at Sevastopol’s Evlita grain terminal in April, without specifying what day.
Dortyol Port did not respond to Reuters questions about shipments or precautions in light of Ukraine’s claims. Dariens Port confirmed that it had found “Russian ships carrying grain”, but did not comment on the screening procedures. There was no answer at Avalita’s head office and a person in the Sevastopol office who answered the phone denied all knowledge of Ukrainian grain at the port and put the phone down.
One of the ships, Matros Pozynich, docked in Syria on at least three occasions within a week or two of visiting Sevastopol’s Avlita grain terminal, according to satellite imagery and ship-tracking data. According to satellite imagery and tracking data, the third ship, Matros Koshka, left Sevastopol’s grain terminal at least three times before the ship’s transponder was turned off. On one of those occasions, it docked in Syria after 10 days, according to a Planet Labs satellite image.
All three vessels are owned and managed by the Russian-based company Crane Marine Contractors LLC and were purchased in December or February, according to Equisis’ ownership records. According to a copy of Crane Marine’s charter currently on its website, the company is a subsidiary of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). The USC website also lists Crane Marine as one of its companies. According to a USC company press release in 2018, Russian company records show Crane Marine is owned by Caspian Energy Group, which is part of USC.
Crane Marine did not respond to a request for comment.
The USC was approved by the United States in 2014 in response to Russia’s efforts to “destabilize eastern Ukraine”, which stated that the state-owned defense technology firm produced weapons and built ships for the Russian Navy. was. In April, Washington renewed and expanded its sanctions relating to the company. The UK approved the USC in February.