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EXPOSED: HOW UKRAINIAN WHEAT STOLEN BY RUSSIA IS SMUGGLED TO ISRAEL
 
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Avi Scharf
April 26, 2026
Haaretz
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_ A Haaretz investigation reveals how grain stolen from occupied
territory in Ukraine has been sold to Israel. The profits of the shady
operation are financing Putin's war _

St. Olga transits the Bosphorus strait headed for Israel, loaded with
grain from occupied Ukraine, 10 July 2023 , Credit: Yörük Işık

 

On a spring evening two weeks ago, a seemingly typical bulk carrier
– a cargo ship that carries unpackaged bulk cargo, such as grain –
docked at the Haifa port. From the outside, it appeared to be just one
of many ships arriving to Israel's shores, nothing out of the
ordinary.

However, inside the ship lay precious merchandise on its way to the
Israeli market. According to an official statement by the Ukrainian
government, the ship, Abinsk, was sailing under a Russian flag and
bringing millions of dollars' worth of wheat, stolen from territories
under Russian occupation. Profits from the selling of this merchandise
in markets around the world – including in Israel – has been
financing President Vladimir Putin's war machine.

The story of the Abinsk was exposed in the Ukrainian media
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an outcry. The Kyiv government was quick to state that Abinsk may
belong to Putin's shadow fleet, and added that it had warned Israel
about the ship's cargo in advance.

However, a Haaretz investigative report indicates that this was not
the first time that stolen grain from Ukraine has been imported for
the Israeli market. In fact, by 2023, about a year after the Russian
military's massive invasion of Ukraine, at least two ships carrying
stolen grain arrived in Israel, and at least one of them unloaded
here, according to documents, an analysis of ship tracking data and
satellite images obtained by Haaretz.

The behavior of seven additional ships that have unloaded in Israel
that year raise suspicion that they also acted to conceal the source
of the grain they were carrying. In addition, internal logs kept by
Russian authorities in occupied Ukrainian ports, obtained by Haaretz,
list over 30 shipments of stolen goods with Israel as their
destination.

Sources who spoke to Haaretz say this is an ongoing pattern. According
to information obtained by Haaretz, four shipments of stolen Ukrainian
grain have already been unloaded in Israel this year. Another
suspected ship arrived to the Haifa Bay on Sunday morning and is
waiting its turn to enter the port.

Ukraine emphasized in an official statement
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that it is unacceptable for Israel to allow the import of stolen
goods. It added that after it approached Israel, it was assured that
appropriate steps would be taken. "It is concerning that despite the
information provided and contacts between the parties, the vessel
[Abinsk] was allowed to unload at the port of Haifa," the statement
said.

Ukraine's large grain-growing areas have earned it the moniker "the
breadbasket of Europe." When the Russian military invaded in February
2022, Putin took over swaths of the country, including some of
Ukraine's main grain-growing territories. Farmers in the occupied
territories testified that wheat was stolen from farms that were
abandoned during the heavy fighting and that farmers who remained
there have been forced to work with the occupation authorities. Russia
sells the wheat at prices that are significantly lower than the market
price.

Kyiv estimates that so far, at least 15 millions tons of wheat have
been stolen. Two Israeli grain buyers have confirmed to Haaretz that
wheat stolen from Ukraine is being sold in Israel.

For Russia, stealing wheat is just the first step. However, the next
step – exporting the goods – is not quite that simple, as Russia
is surrounded by a wall of international sanctions levied by the
European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom after the
start of the war. For this reason, Russia has been employing
underhanded methods to export the wheat and disguise its moves.
Indeed, Haaretz's investigation, which tracked cargo ships arriving in
Israel throughout 2023, shows that they employed unusual disruption
techniques, making it harder to trace their paths and find the source
of the goods they carried. The Russian methods include clandestine
transfer at sea and violations of maritime regulations.

How the method works

The suspected bulk carriers that arrived in Israel didn't take on
grain in Russian ports. Rather, they were loaded some 10 kilometers
(6.2 miles) offshore, in what's known as a ship-to-ship, or STS,
transfer, where cargo is transferred between ships positioned
alongside each other at sea. These transfers took place south of the
Kerch Strait in the Black Sea – a passage between Russian territory
on one side and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory on the other.

Before arriving in Israel, some of the bulk carriers had rendezvoused
with large cargo ships that Russia uses as floating granaries. Others
had cargo transferred to them from small feeder ships that brought
stolen grain directly from the occupied territories. While engaging in
the STS operation, the ships turned off their transponders – the
ship's automatic identification system, or AIS – so they couldn't be
tracked. Disabling a ship's AIS is generally illegal under the
regulations of the International Maritime Organization's International
Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea.

Moves of this kind are typical of ships that are attempting to conceal
the source of the goods they carry, for fear that they won't be able
to sell them to international clients who aren't interested in stolen
goods, shipping analyst Yörük Isik, who runs the Istanbul-based
Bosphorus Observer consultancy, told Haaretz. This phenomenon has also
been noticed among Russia's fleet of ghost tankers – older ships
that use deception tactics to hide the origin of the oil they're
carrying – to circumvent sanctions and export Russian oil.

The process of transferring goods on the high seas does not, in
itself, indicate illegal activity. In some situations, such transfers
are necessary. But the fact that the vessels involved turned off their
AIS when close to Ukrainian ports and during STS operations, and
turned them on again a few days later, when they were already loaded
with wheat, lends credence to the suspicion that they took on stolen
wheat from occupied ports.

After taking on merchandise at sea, the bulk carriers once again
turned on their radios and set sail for Israel. After a few days'
passage, they unloaded the wheat at designated wharfs in the ports of
Haifa and Ashdod. To work out the ships' path, Haaretz made use of
ship tracking data from the MarineTraffic website, satellite images
from Planet Labs and additional satellite information from the EU's
Copernicus program.

From Crimea to Ashdod

One ship that stands out in this smuggling network is the St. Olga. In
July 2023, it unloaded stolen Ukrainian wheat in the port of Ashdod.

To understand St. Olga's moves, one has to go back a couple of months,
to May 2023. After completing a passage to Syria, Russian bulk carrier
Matros Pozynich sailed north through the Bosporus, empty. After
sailing into the Black Sea on May 27, it turned off its AIS for a
week. On June 3, its AIS was turned on again as the ship sailed toward
the Kerch Strait, at which time it reported greater draft – a figure
indicating the depth of the vessel below the waterline. In practice,
this means that the ship had taken on cargo.

Disabling the AIS was intended to prevent relevant tracking agencies
from determining the location where the ship took on merchandise.
However, the trick was unsuccessful: a satellite image taken on May 31
showed Matros Pozynich at the Avlita grain terminal at the port of
Sevastopol, in Russian-occupied Crimea. The image shows three of the
ship's five cargo hatches open – the loading of Ukrainian wheat was
underway at the time the satellite image was taken.

One week later, Matros Pozynich arrived south of the Kerch Strait.
There, according to satellite imagery, it attached itself to one of
Russia's floating granaries – a large cargo ship named Greendale,
which is always waiting in the vicinity and is part of the fleet of
floating granaries used to take in Russian and Ukrainian grain from
the mainland. The stolen cargo was transferred from the Matros
Pozynich to the Greendale and to another unidentified ship.

Bulk carrier St. Olga was lying in wait empty, not far from there. On
June 8 it disabled its AIS and began to approach the Greendale, the
floating granary. Due to heavy clouds, it was hard to spot on the
satellite imagery, but a momentary report from its transponder
revealed its exact location – right next to the Greendale. Satellite
images from June 14 through 18 leave no room for doubt: The St. Olga
was in the midst of clandestine loading of merchandise at sea, which
went unrecorded by tracking systems. On July 1, the St. Olga was again
recorded attached to the Greendale, with Matros Pozynich on its other
side, having already brought in another shipment of stolen wheat from
Sevastopol.

The next morning, the St. Olga once again turned on its AIS: It
reported greater draft and updated its destination to Israel. On July
19, it docked in the Ashdod port, carrying 27,000 tons of wheat worth
some $9 million. The wheat it had brought was picked up by the new
grain conveyor, which was inaugurated just a few months earlier,
arrived at the nearby silos, and from there, by trucks, to Israeli
flour mills.

Last year, the Ukrainian government imposed sanctions on the St. Olga
for its involvement in Putin's smuggling network. It was involved in
at least four wheat shipments to Israel, said the official statement
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Another ship that stands out in the stolen goods transfer network is
the Sword Lion. A couple of days after the St. Olga finished taking on
grain from the Greendale, the Sword Lion did the same. This encounter
was recorded by satellite. After finishing, the Sword Lion went a
little farther to the southwest, where it took on grain several more
times from small feeder ships that had disabled their AIS in order to
conceal their identity and port of origin.

However, a Ukrainian investigative journalism website
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exposed export documents indicating that in the two weeks the Sword
Lion [[link removed]] had
spent near the Kerch Strait, it took on grain from occupied Ukrainian
territory in order to bring it to Israel. In addition, a Russian
quality control document shows that samples had been taken from a
barley shipment on the Sword Lion that was intended for an Israeli
buyer – ADM Israel, based in Beit Dagan, an importer of raw
materials for the animal food industry.

Having turned on its transponder again on July 27, the Sword Lion
reported that it was full of cargo and on its way to Haifa. ADM
Israel's website mentioned that the ship was to arrive soon with
"European barley." In early August 2023, the ship dropped anchor in
the Haifa Bay, awaiting its turn to get to the wheat wharf. However,
after one week – shortly after the investigative report on the
export documents was published in Ukraine – it set sail again to
Turkey, where it unloaded the stolen goods.

On top of the St. Olga and the Sword Lion, Haaretz identified seven
other ships that unloaded wheat in Israel in 2023 that they took on
from unidentified ships in the vicinity of the Russian-controlled
Kerch Strait, with their AIS off and while making an effort to hide
the source of the merchandise. Available information doesn't make it
possible to ascertain the source of the wheat they carried.

Developing the concealment mechanism

In early 2022, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the two
countries together were responsible for one-third of the world's
supply of wheat
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This is one of Ukraine's main industries. In 2021 alone, Ukraine
exported $12 billion worth of wheat. After war broke out, Ukrainian
wheat exports shrank dramatically due to the naval siege laid by
Russia on Ukrainian ports. In addition to the siege, Russian forces
have occupied extensive wheat growing areas in southern and eastern
Ukraine, taking over a large amount of grain. International law
experts have explained that arbitrary seizure of property at such a
scope, for non-military needs, is a war crime.

Since then, many
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international
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shown that Russia has been exporting stolen Ukrainian wheat by sea –
mainly to Syria, Turkey and Iran. Wheat sales is one of the main
sources Putin has been using to finance his expensive invasion of
Ukraine.

The export mechanism for stolen wheat developed gradually, becoming
more and more sophisticated over time. Haaretz obtained official
Russian administration documents from occupied territories in Ukraine
that provide a glimpse into the process. According to the documents,
early on in the war, Russia tried to export Ukrainian wheat through
occupied Ukrainian ports "without concealing the source of the wheat."
However, that plan failed due to international criticism and
shipowners' refusal to dock in occupied ports. Without a route for
large-scale export of stolen wheat, stolen wheat stockpiles in Crimean
granaries grew. "There is no more room, the Sevastopol wheat terminal
is all choked up," the documents say.

The slow export resulted in a decline in revenues and Russian
authorities were quick to come up with solutions. One solution was to
allow Russian companies to buy wheat from Ukrainian farmers, transfer
it to Russia by rail and trucks and export it from there to the
international market, after mixing it with Russian wheat, the sale of
which outside of Russia is permissible. "It will be impossible to
trace," the documents' authors promised.

In addition, Russian authorities formulated a protocol that regulates
the use of small feeding ships for transferring the wheat from
storehouses in Russian ports out to sea, and from there to ships that
will take it to customers. At one point, due to a shortage of storing
space in ports inside Russia, it was decided to make use of a large
number of big ships as floating granaries – for wheat that
originates in Russia and, as this investigative report indicates –
also for stolen goods from occupied ports. A checkup by Haaretz
indicated that, at any given moment, there were five ships operating
as floating granaries in the area of activity south of Kerch Strait.

Russian administration documents obtained by Haaretz also include a
list of 120 shipments of stolen Ukrainian grain that went out through
two occupied Crimean ports: Kerch and Sevastopol. Between November
2022 and June of 2023, most shipments went to Syria and Egypt, others
went to Turkey, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, and 31 of them –
90,000 tons in all – were marked for Israel. According to the
documents, the stolen Ukrainian wheat marked for Israel was mostly
loaded in the port of Kerch onto nine Russian feeder ships that
unloaded the wheat to floating granaries and bulk carriers at sea,
which then carried it to its final destination.

Ship tracking data and satellite images analyzed by Haaretz match the
information in these documents. Haaretz succeeded in locating two of
the nine ships, even though they turned off their AIS to avoid
detection – the Dagomys and the Volgo-balt 203 – while they were
clandestinely taking on stolen goods at occupied Ukrainian ports, in
accordance with the dates when shipments were marked for Israel.
Haaretz also located those two same ships on additional dates, taking
on stolen goods at occupied ports and secretly transferring them at
sea to the sanctioned St. Olga.

The entire smuggling mechanism depended on the source of the wheat
being kept secret. Documents obtained by Haaretz even mention that
Russian wheat traders insisted that Russian authorities should make
every effort to keep the source of the Ukrainian wheat they were
selling a secret. Over time, this indeed came to be the reality. "I
shall point out, on the positive side, that Russian wheat traders are
happy about the secrecy of the export process from the port of Kerch,"
one local official wrote to his superior in Moscow. He wrote that
unlike smuggling operations from the port of Sevastopol, when it comes
to Kerch, "there are no mentions in the press."

An Israeli buyer who imports wheat from Eastern Europe told Haaretz
that "the Russian suppliers state that this is wheat originating from
Siberia, sent west in train cars." According to him, the suppliers
present documents confirming this, and Israeli buyers have no way of
checking whether they are lying. "It was only after the Ukrainian
embassy contacted us and warned us that it was forbidden to buy from
these specific suppliers that we realized that this was the source of
the wheat."

Haaretz asked the Israeli Foreign Ministry why Israel is allowing
stolen Ukrainian wheat to be smuggled from Russia, why no steps were
taken even when Ukraine had warned in advance about the Abinsk ship,
and whether Israel intends to take action regarding the suspicious
ship that arrived in Haifa this morning. The Foreign Ministry said in
response: "We have forwarded answers on the subject to our Ukrainian
friends through diplomatic and professional channels."

Yörük Isik and Oded Yaron took part in this investigative report.

Illustration: Nadav Gazit

_Haaretz_
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is an independent daily newspaper with a broadly liberal outlook both
on domestic issues and on international affairs. It has a journalistic
staff of some 330 reporters, writers and editors. The paper is perhaps
best known for its Op-ed page, where its senior columnists - among
them some of Israel's leading commentators and analysts - reflect on
current events. Haaretz plays an important role in the shaping of
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