Russian ex-agriculture minister stole billions of dollars worth of grain from Kherson region

Russian Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Agriculture Dmitry Patrushev has been notified of suspicion of war crimes - misappropriation of agricultural property in the occupied territories. It is the theft of more than 4 million tons of grain worth more than UAH 23 billion.

This is stated in the suspicion of the Prosecutor General's Office.

According to law enforcement, he is accused of committing war crimes in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions during his tenure as Minister from February 24, 2022, to May 14, 2024.

The investigation established that Patrushev was one of the key executors of a large-scale criminal scheme to misappropriate the property of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises, which was not caused by any military necessity.

In particular, it involved the seizure of agricultural land, buildings, granaries, elevators, machinery, crops and other agricultural products. All of this - in cooperation with the Russian occupation administrations - was subsequently illegally exported to Russia and the temporarily occupied Crimea, and then exported abroad under the guise of Russian products.

As part of this plan, the Russian leadership instructed Patrushev to use the ministry's controlled units to establish "their" procedures in the occupied territories: re-registering enterprises, appointing loyal managers from among collaborators, and subordinating assets to the Russian agro-industrial complex.

As a result of such actions, the assets of leading agricultural companies were illegally appropriated, including Nibulon JV LLC, Starobilsk Elevator, TESSLAGROUP Group, the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine and others.

According to the investigation, more than 4.1 million tons of grain crops worth more than UAH 23 billion were exported to the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions alone. This grain was later sold to Syria, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon and other countries as products of Russian origin.

The area of agricultural land in the Kherson region alone is more than 1.9 million hectares, most of which is arable land, perennial plantations, pastures and hayfields. Before the war, there were more than 2,700 agricultural enterprises operating in this area, which became targets of Russian raiding.

Patrushev's actions are classified under Part 2 of Article 28, Part 1 of Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as war crimes, violation of the laws and customs of war. The prosecutor's office continues to identify other persons among the political and military leadership of the Russian Federation involved in the systematic looting of the occupied territories of Ukraine.

In March, a deputy of the Kherson regional council from the banned Saldo party was suspected of assisting the occupiers by organizing a forced harvest and handing it over to the Russian military. According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the suspect owns several agricultural enterprises and in the spring of 2022, while in Muzykivka, he repeatedly supplied resources to the Russian army.

Анна Бальчінос