Ukrainian or Russian Crimea supplies wheat to Syria
2022.12.19 01:24
Ukrainian or Russian Crimea supplies wheat to Syria
Budrigannews.com – Syria has significantly increased wheat imports from the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea that Russia annexed from Ukraine this year using a low-profile fleet of ships under U.S. sanctions. This is a sign of tightening economic ties between two allies that the West shuns.
According to previously unreported Refinitiv shipping data, the amount of wheat imported into Syria from the Crimean port of Sevastopol in the Black Sea increased by 17 times this year to just over 500,000 tonnes, accounting for nearly a third of the country’s total grain imports.
According to the data, three Syrian vessels that are subject to sanctions imposed by Washington are among the countries that are increasingly relying on their own ships to move the grain because sanctions are making it more difficult for Syria and Russia to trade using conventional sea transport and marine insurance.
2014 saw Russia acquire Crimea. On February 24, Russian forces invaded additional areas of Ukraine, and despite military setbacks, they still control a portion of the agricultural hubs of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Both the Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine and occupied Zaporizhzhia agree that some grain was exported via Crimea. However, Russia denies Ukraine’s claim that the occupiers stole grain.
Ukraine says essentially a piece of the grain that went through Sevastopol was taken from Ukrainian regions after Russia attacked. Since the invasion, shipments to Syria have been tracked by the Ukraine Embassy in Beirut, which estimates that 500,000 tonnes of what it calls “plunder” Ukrainian grain have arrived in Syria from multiple ports.
The calculations and the Ukrainian authorities’ claim that grain was stolen, according to the embassy, were based on data from silo and field owners in occupied territories, satellite data of truck movements to ports, and ship tracking.
Requests for comment for this story were not immediately met by the agriculture and foreign ministries of Russia. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, called the claims that Russia stole grain during its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine “fake” in May.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the wheat’s provenance or whether the farmers and traders who handled it were compensated.
In June, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed governor of the Russian-occupied part of Zaporizhzhia, stated that grain had been exported from Zaporizhzhia through Crimean ports. However, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that he stated that farmers would be compensated through a company established by his administration.
In addition, in August, the Russia-installed administration of Crimea stated in social media comments that 1.4 million tonnes of wheat by bunker weight were harvested from the country’s own fields.
Ukraine questions these figures, saying Crimea doesn’t deliver anywhere near that amount.
In response to Reuters’ inquiries, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry issued a statement that stated, “Grain exported from the territory of mainland Ukraine is included in the so-called ‘Crimean harvest.'”
According to Reuters, prior to the current conflict, Syria had previously imported grain from Crimea on multiple occasions since Russia assumed control of the peninsula.
This year, Syria imported approximately 501,800 tonnes of wheat from Sevastopol until the end of November, up from approximately 28,200 tonnes in 2021.
The data, which are compiled from port inspection reports provided by port operators, show that ships were picked up beginning in May, with the largest monthly shipment of 78,600 tonnes in October.
Through government-to-government deals, Syria is increasingly relying on its own cargo ships or Russian-flagged ships to bring food into the country. These deals avoid the usual tender and charter process for moving goods by sea.
The number of cargo orders—global requests for available ships to transport grains—to Syria fell by two thirds to 54 in the year to November 30 compared to the whole of 2021, according to analysis from the maritime and commodities data platform Shipfix.
According to two grain trade sources who are familiar with the journey, the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut, other Ukrainian diplomats, and an analysis from Shipfix, the wheat cargoes are instead typically traveling on three Syrian ships to the Latakia and Tartus ports in Syria.
According to Equasis and the U.S. Treasury, the state-owned Syrian General Authority for Maritime Transport owns the ships, the Laodicea, Finikia, and Souria. The United States has sanctioned all three since 2015 for their alleged involvement in the conflict in Syria over the past decade.
Since top-tier insurance and certification services cannot be accessed, designated ships are typically older and less well-maintained. They are able to work more easily with countries that are also under sanctions, which could be one reason why the two allies are trading more.
Russia has complained on multiple occasions that the sanctions imposed on it this year have restricted its ability to ship grains to African and Arab nations that rely on its produce for food.
Although the thicket of Western sanctions against Syria and Russia does not explicitly target food, they can, in practice, make it more difficult for grain-trading companies to do business with them, particularly due to financial constraints.
Reuters inquired about the vessels but received no response from Syrian maritime authorities.
The Mikhail Nenashev, Matros Pozynich, and Matros Koshka, which Equasis, a shipping database, reveals are owned by a subsidiary of a Russian state-owned company called United Shipbuilding Corporation, also carried some of the shipments.
In April, following the Russian invasion, Britain, Washington, and the European Union imposed sanctions on the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
When the country’s civil war destroyed domestic harvests, which had previously produced enough for the country’s staple of subsidised flat bread and surpluses for export, the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began to rely on grain imports. Drought has recently reduced the crop even further.
Since 2015, Russia has assisted Assad’s troops in recapturing the majority of Syria from opposition fighters. Russia has supported the Syrian government for decades.
Syria also lacks cash due to sanctions and more than a decade of conflict, making Russia’s relatively cheaper wheat appealing.
During a January trip to Crimea, the economy minister of Syria said that his country needed 1.5 million tonnes of wheat imported from Russia.
One trade source familiar with Syria’s grain purchases claims that actual imports will be close to that, noting that this year’s harvest was the worst in Syria’s history.
In contrast to previous years, when Syria supplemented supplies with purchases from other nations such as Romania, the data from Refinitiv indicate that Russia and the territory it controls accounted for all but a small portion of the imports.
More An entire city was built on site of eliminating oil leak in Keystone
According to the initial source for the grain trade, Damascus received financing for at least one million tonnes of grain imports from Russia in 2021 and 2022 from a credit line provided by Moscow. The deputy prime minister of Russia stated last year that Russia had given Syria a loan in part for food.
Syrian government authorities and the state grains organization Hoboob didn’t answer demands for data for this story. For a number of years, Russian authorities have not made grain supplies to Syria public.
