Stolen grain from Kherson region was sold to Syria: new details of the Saldo case

On March 20, 2026, the Office of the Prosecutor General sent an indictment to court against Volodymyr Saldo, one of the key collaborators in the temporarily occupied part of the Kherson region.

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine.

According to the investigation, after the seizure of the region in 2022, he voluntarily cooperated with the Russian occupation forces and headed the so-called administration, effectively becoming its head.

Control over the agricultural sector and expropriation

One of his main activities was to establish full control over the agricultural sector of the region.

The investigation found that under Saldo's leadership, the occupation authorities organized a systematic scheme of forced confiscation of agricultural products.

In particular

• grain and other resources were taken away from farmers
• enterprises were seized along with property and infrastructure
• grain terminals were taken over by the occupation administration

This was especially true of farms whose owners had left or refused to cooperate with the occupiers.

According to law enforcement officials, more than UAH 5.3 billion worth of products were misappropriated in this way.

How Ukrainian grain was exported

After the seizure of the resources, the logistics of their export were organized.

The stolen products were transported

• by road
• by rail

The main routes were to:

• ports of the temporarily occupied Crimea
• the territory of Russia, in particular, Krasnodar Krai and Rostov Oblast

From there, grain was exported abroad by sea under the guise of products of Russian origin.

Among the main destinations:

• Syria
• Egypt
• Turkey
• Lebanon

This created a full-fledged scheme of misappropriation and legalization of Ukrainian resources on the international market.

Court and international responsibility

So far, nine participants in this scheme have been brought to trial. They are accused of violating international humanitarian law, in particular the Geneva Convention, as well as the laws and customs of war.

The Prosecutor General's Office calls the sending of the indictment against Saldo a key step in bringing the organizers of the scheme to justice.

The next step may be a trial in the International Criminal Court.

The pre-trial investigation was conducted by SBU investigators with operational support from counterintelligence units.

Earlier, in November 2025, another collaborator, Yevhen Balytskyi, who was appointed by the occupation authorities as the "head" of a part of Zaporizhzhia region, was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia.

He was also found guilty of organizing the illegal export of Ukrainian grain from the temporarily occupied territories.

Андрій Колісніченко