Despite the declaration of non-recognition of Crimea as Russian, Turkey is not ashamed of stolen grain.
Journalists published evidence that the Russian occupiers are taking Ukrainian grain from Crimea to Turkish ports. This is stated in the investigation of the “Schemes” project.
Despite the assurances of the Turkish authorities that they do not recognize Crimea as Russian and do not buy stolen Ukrainian grain from the occupied territories, satellite images published by the investigators prove that Russia systematically exports Ukrainian grain to Turkey via Crimea.
Vessels regularly call at the port of occupied Sevastopol, load grain brought from the temporarily occupied territories through the Avlita terminal, and unload in Turkish ports.
The occupiers turn off the radars on the ships, so these processes cannot be tracked through special monitoring systems, but they are regularly caught on satellite images.
One of these ships is the Russian-flagged Mykhailo Nenashev. Journalists have evidence of at least three of his flights from a port in Crimea to ports in Turkey.
“On April 15, the Planet Labs satellite recorded this bulker near Avlita. Because the radars were turned off for three days, the vessel remained “invisible” to the official Marine Traffic vessel monitoring system. At the same time, this service recorded that before entering the Crimean port it was “in ballast” – that is, empty. And after – already downloaded. On April 22, “Mykhailo Nenashev” entered the Turkish port of Deringe. In four days, the system recorded that the bulk carrier was unloaded,” the investigation says.
Another Syrian vessel, Finikia, was detected by the satellite in “Avlita” on April 20. The next day it went out to sea loaded and appeared on radars. On April 29, Finikia unloaded grain in Nemrut, Turkey. The ship turned off the radars again on May 10, and on May 13 it was detected by a satellite in the Crimean terminal. The bulker was loaded with grain and arrived in the Turkish Iskenderun on May 24.
In the report, the journalists describe in detail each voyage of the mentioned vessels, and also publish accompanying documents for the grain that Turkey imports in large batches – the origin of the goods is indicated in them as ” Crimea, Russia”.
In a comment to “Schemes”, Ambassador of Ukraine to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar noted: “We are working with the Turkish side. But we are told that the Russian documents provided for the import of grain into the port are legal and they perceive them as necessary to unload the ship in a legal manner.”
Read also: Ukraine wants security guarantees for grain exports – Zelenskyi
After Ukraine asked Turkey to detain and arrest the ship, assuming that its cargo could be stolen, Turkish customs < strong>detained the ship “Zhibek Zholy”, which left the temporarily occupied Ukrainian Berdyansk and arrived at the port of Karasu in Turkey on July 1.
