Ruslan Mazurenko's grain warehouses are in the vicinity of Kiev. Tons of flaxseed are being loaded onto trucks that will travel to Europe.
The head of the Ukrainian agricultural company Harveast is pleased with this year's harvest. "One of the months was very dry, but we also sow a lot of winter crops that don't need so much moisture," Mazurenko told ARD. His company cultivates significant areas in the Kiev region - 25,000 hectares, which is equivalent to 35,000 football fields. The main crops are corn and sunflower, but rapeseed and wheat are also grown.
From Donetsk via Mariupol to Kiev
Mazurenko is from Mariupol, but with the outbreak of war in 2022, he and his company left the region in southeastern Ukraine. This is the second time Mazurenko has had to move - until 2014, the headquarters was in Donetsk, where the company owned 200,000 hectares of land, ARD reports.
Today, these areas are under the control of Russia, which has occupied areas of eastern Ukraine. "It is difficult for me to describe my feelings - it is painful and incomprehensible," says Mazurenko. The fact that Russia now controls the lands and makes deals with grain is nothing more than theft.
"We lose 13 million tons a year"
The breadbasket of Europe - that's what they call Ukraine. Wheat is the main thing it exports - 24 percent of all Ukrainian exports last year, according to UN data. Despite the war, Ukraine has managed to increase the amount exported, ARD writes. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2024, agricultural products worth 21 billion euros were exported. In this way, Ukraine has come close to the levels before the Russian invasion, the German public media notes.
She explains that this was also possible due to the military successes of the Ukrainian naval forces in the Black Sea, since grain is mostly transported from there. Russia temporarily blocked the Black Sea with its Navy, but the developed sea drones of its own production helped Ukraine to free the trade route again.
However, Ukraine still does not have access to part of its agricultural production, since about 20 percent of the country's territory is under Russian occupation. "If we compare the yield of 2021, before the start of the war, with today's, this is 13 million tons that we lose annually," says Oleh Khomenko of the Union of Ukrainian Agricultural Producers. This is a fairly large amount compared to the total agricultural production.
Stolen grain is becoming increasingly important for Russia
This stolen grain from the occupied regions is apparently becoming increasingly important for Russian agriculture, writes ARD. In 2024, the occupied regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia provided three percent of the entire Russian grain harvest, the Ministry of Agriculture in Moscow reported. Without these regions, the harvest would have been even weaker - because due to bad weather in southern Russia, farmers suffered significant losses.
This year, the Russian occupation authorities are predicting about one million tons of grain in Lugansk alone - twice as much as last year. Some of the grain is to be exported abroad. Ukrainian agricultural expert Oleh Khomenko, for his part, believes that the numbers are underestimated. "In Lugansk and Donetsk, agriculture was very intensive and developed very well. "The occupation authorities are probably manipulating the facts and figures to prevent possible sanctions," he told ARD.
More pressure must be put on Russia
Mazurenko's company Harveast employed 1,200 people before the Russian invasion, now there are only 250. Some fled the war abroad, others remained in the occupied areas. "For a while we maintained contact with all employees, but that's not the case anymore," Mazurenko told the German public media.
He doesn't know exactly who is currently cultivating the land in the occupied territories, but he is sure that his company's harvesting machines are being used. In the spring of 2022, he was still receiving their GPS signal. “Then I realized that our tractors were roaming around the occupied region.“
Mazurenko is convinced that one day the lands in the occupied regions will return to Ukrainian control. The businessman hopes that Ukraine's allies will put even more pressure on Russia with further sanctions.
Author: Nils Bula ARD