Bellingcat: Russian Traders are Shipping Ukrainian Grain to Saudi Arabia

Open-source intelligence agency Bellingcat (in cooperation with Lloyd's List) has detected a new buyer of "stolen" Ukrainian grain, and in an unexpected location: Saudi Arabia.

Kyiv claims that grain produced in and exported from Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine is stolen property, given the patterns of land expropriation and seizure of goods under Russian rule. Russia denies this claim, asserts that the territory is inherently part of Russia, and says that the goods produced there can be freely sold and traded as Russian products.

Because of the controversial nature of the trade, vessels moving grain out of ports on the Sea of Azov or the Crimean Peninsula have been closely tracked by Western analysts and ship-spotters. During the period of the Russian-aligned Assad regime's rule, Syria was a leading destination, and its newly-independent government still receives cargoes. Bellingcat and other outlets have since identified other takers in Egypt, Turkey, Houthi-controlled regions of Yemen, and Russia-aligned Iran and Venezuela.

Now, new buyers appear to have emerged in Saudi Arabia, according to Bellingcat. The outlet tracked a single vessel - the Russian-flagged bulker Krasnodar - on two voyages from a sanctioned terminal in Sevastopol to Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports. On the first voyage, the ship departed in late August (with AIS likely turned off to disguise the port call in Crimea) and arrived at King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia in September. Along the way, prolific ship-spotter Yoruk Isik photographed the vessel southbound in the Bosporus, showing her in laden condition.

Krasnodar returned in late September - her in-ballast status visible thanks to Isik's photography - and turned off her AIS in the Black Sea. Satellite imaging picked up the vessel at the Avlita grain terminal in Sevastopol in the second week of October, then at the port of Jazan, Saudi Arabia in November, and then once more at the same Sevastopol terminal in late November.

The charterer, Russian grain trader Petrokhleb-Kuban, denies that its vessels call at the Sevastopol grain terminal, which is under sanctions. It also denies trading any grain from Ukraine, and denies that Krasnodar disabled its AIS. Instead, it suggests, Krasnodar called at the Russian port of Kavkaz, Russia - not in occupied Crimea. (Bellingcat verified the ship's location at the sanctioned Avlita grain terminal in Sevastopol three times by satellite imaging.)

Petrokhleb-Kuban told Bellingcat that the bills of lading for these voyages showed the grain's origin as Russian, and the port of origin as Kavkaz. Given that the ship's AIS was not visible during port calls in Crimea, and the vessel's documents reportedly did not reference Ukraine, it is possible that Saudi port authorities were unaware of the cargo's true nature - though Ukraine's representatives did bring it up with Saudi diplomats at an IMO meeting recently, Ukrainian development official Alona Shkrum told Bellingcat.

The grain trade is just one aspect of the increasingly contested maritime trade lanes in the Black Sea. Ukraine has also targeted Russia-linked tankers with its suicide drone boats, damaging three vessels, and Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian ports and the vessels that call at them - including a round of multiple strikes on Turkish-owned ships last week.

Top image: Krasnodar at Iskenderun, 2023 (file image courtesy Capt. M. Jendi / VesselFinder)