Main points
- Israel has refused to accept a cargo of stolen grain from the TOT, and the ship is awaiting permission to enter the Turkish port of Iskenderun.
- Ukrainian authorities are urging Turkey not to accept this cargo and are demanding that grain samples be taken for analysis to determine its origin.
Turkey may have accepted grain from TOT / Photo 24 Channel
A ship carrying grain stolen by Russia is awaiting permission to enter a Turkish port, following a failed attempt to unload in Israel.
Which country can accept grain from TOT instead of Israel?
The Ukrainian ambassador told The Times of Israel about this.
We hope they do the right thing, like Israel did,
– said Ambassador Yevhen Korniychuk.
In April, Israeli importer Zenziper decided not to accept the shipment. This happened after a public conflict between Ukraine and Israel.
According to Korniychuk, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General's Office are working to convince Ankara not to accept this cargo.
Note: The Panormitis vessel arrived at the Turkish port of Iskenderun on May 13, according to Turkish media reports.
What is known about the conflict between the countries?
Recall that the Ukrainian Embassy in Tel Aviv filed an official complaint with the Israeli police against two Israeli companies. United24 reported this in early May.
The companies are accused of importing wheat stolen by Russia from temporarily occupied territories in eastern Ukraine. The complaint names two companies – Dizengoff Trading and Zenziper.
The latter reportedly decided to abandon the suspicious cargo .
According to the embassy's complaint, Dizengoff received 43,800 tons of grain, of which approximately 16,500 tons were stolen wheat. The cargo was unloaded from the Abinsk after it docked at the port of Haifa on April 12.
The complaint describes a massive maritime smuggling scheme coordinated by Russian supplier Strategic Grain Management, headquartered in Dubai,
– the material says.
- The stolen wheat was initially loaded onto two smaller “carrier” ships in the occupied regions of Ukraine. The Leonid Pastrikov received 7,600 tons in the port of Berdyansk, and the Fedor loaded 8,900 tons in Sevastopol.
- These vessels then headed to the Kavkaz anchorage in the northern Black Sea, where they transferred the grain to the larger Abinsk. To conceal the origin of the cargo, the Abinsk often turned off its tracking transponders.
And on March 17, after receiving grain from the occupied ports, the ship turned on the transponder again and headed for Israel, where it was eventually unloaded at the Dagon silos in the port of Haifa.
Important! Haaretz has obtained satellite images that confirm the presence of support vessels in Berdyansk and Sevastopol on the dates specified by Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities are demanding that cargo samples be taken for laboratory analysis to identify soil markers specific to eastern Ukraine.
They also request the seizure of ship documents to expose the fraud network.
In particular, the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Heorhiy Tykhyi, previously said that grain shipments from the occupied territories were arriving in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and some other countries.
What else is known about the situation with the stolen grain?
Israeli importer Zenziper did indeed refuse to accept a suspicious grain shipment. As a result, the importer informed the supplier that the shipment would have to be redirected to another port. The reason for this decision was the risk of sanctions, including from the European Union.
Russia reacted to the situation. The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the Israeli company's decision. The aggressor country's Foreign Ministry reported that the situation contradicts Israel's intentions to support economic cooperation with Russia.
At the same time, the occupiers have taken out almost 60,000 tons of wheat from the port of temporarily occupied Mariupol. According to information, eight ships with wheat grain have been sent from the city's seaport since January.
Kateryna Yaresko, a journalist for the SeaKrime project of the Myrotvorets Center, also reported that the PANORMITIS arrived in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. She wrote that the ship was not accepted in Israel due to Ukraine's appeal regarding the origin of the grain from the occupied territories of Ukraine.