Aerial footage showing where Russia hides grain stolen from Ukraine

He says Russian forces now occupy 80% of the tens of thousands of hectares he farms and accuses them of stealing grain on an industrial scale.

A security camera in one of the company’s areas captured the moment the Russians arrived. We have blurred images of the surroundings to protect the identities of the farm’s owners.

In the same recording, later, it is possible to see a soldier looking at a security camera and shooting at it. But he misses.

Grain trucks were stolen and Dmytro says some of them had GPS trackers installed.

We were able to analyze this data to find that it went south to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, and then to Russia.

From the GPS data, both trucks stopped near a storage facility — identified as a place to unload and store grain — in the Crimean city of Oktyabrske.

In a satellite image from June 14 this year, a line of trucks can be seen on the road next to the site.

It can be seen that the storage facility is next to a railway line, which can be used to transport grain to Russia or to ports in southern Crimea. The upper part of the storage location also appears to have the Z symbol — the emblem of Russia’s invasion — on the roof.

It is very difficult to track individual shipments of stolen grain, but there is plenty of evidence that many of them go to Crimea first. There are satellite imagery at two main entry points — at Chonhar and Armiansk — where you can see various vehicles, which can be used to transport grain and other products.

An image of the Chonhar entry point, taken on June 17, shows a line of trucks over 5 km long.

This level of road traffic in Crimea is unusual, as Ukraine has not had access to the area since it was annexed by Russia in 2014, and exports grain and other products from elsewhere.

It may be possible to explain some of the traffic volume as empty trucks returning from occupied areas, delivering supplies to Russian troops. But an obvious deduction is that many of the vehicles are transporting grain — or other products like sunflower seeds — taken from Ukrainian farmers.

Satellite images from the Crimean city of Dzhankoi show trucks waiting on a road next to a grain storage facility and close to the train station.

The images show freight trains, with wagons of the type used to transport grain and other products, at the station next to the warehouse.

Dzhankoi trains are connected to the ports of Sevastopol and Kerch, where products can be transported to Russia or abroad.

“They first take grain to the annexed Crimea, where they transport it to (the posts of) Kerch or Sevastopol, then they load Ukrainian grain on Russian ships and go to the Kerch Strait,” says Andrii Klymenko, an expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Black Sea in Kiev, which regularly monitors the movements of ships around Crimea.

“There, in the Kerch Strait (between Crimea and Russia), they transfer Ukrainian grain from small ships to bulk carriers, where it is mixed with grain from Russia — or in some cases, they sail to this area just to make it look like they are carrying Russian grain.”

He adds that the content is exported with Russian certificates, that is, declaring that it is Russian grain.

Ships often head to Syria or Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he has investigated allegations about Ukrainian grain shipments to Turkey and so far has not found any evidence.

“We saw in the records that the port of departure for the ships and the origin of the goods is Russia,” he said.

Satellite images of the Avlita grain terminal in the port of Sevastopol in western Crimea show a high level of activity throughout June, with yellow material consistent with the color of grain being loaded onto a series of ships.

We’ve looked at images from the same terminal in June for the past few years, and this amount of activity appears to be high — and unusual.

Some experts we spoke to said that this activity can only be explained by the transport of Ukrainian grain.

“Crimea doesn’t produce much grain for export,” says Mariia Bogonos, an agricultural policy expert at the Kyiv School of Economics.

It would also make no geographical sense for Russia to use Sevastopol to export its own grain.

But Mike Lee, an agricultural expert at consultancy Green Square Agro who has worked in Ukraine and Russia, says some grain from Crimea could be part of a reserve from last year’s harvest held in stock because of the war.

“Crimea is under Russian control, but supply chains have also been affected there.”

From Crimea, US and Ukrainian authorities and press reports have identified nine ships believed to have transported stolen Ukrainian grain abroad.

Using data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a specialist trade intelligence service dedicated to the global maritime community, the BBC has tracked these ships on voyages between Crimea and ports in Turkey and Syria since April.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence says the ships used what maritime experts would describe as “deceptive” navigation practices — turning off their onboard trackers when entering the Black Sea or moving through the Kerch Strait near the Crimea.

When their trackers work again, the ships are sailing south and many report a shallower water depth, suggesting they did cargo loading during this blackout.

The BBC has mapped the voyages of three ships: the Matros Pozynich and Sormovskiy 48, owned by two companies in Russia, and the Finikia, owned by the General Maritime Authority of Syria.

We have tried to contact the Russian registered owners of these ships to inquire about the voyages, but have had no response. We were unable to speak to the Syrian owners.

Despite gaps in their tracking histories, satellite imagery has revealed where some of the ships have been.

Photos by Maxar show Matros Pozynich in Sevastopol, Crimea, in mid-May. During this voyage, he sailed into the Kerch Strait, had a five-day transponder blackout, and then reappeared hundreds of kilometers south in the Black Sea. He was later photographed in the Syrian port of Latakia — but had his tracking system turned off.

According to the UN’s International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), ships must have their trackers on at all times, unless doing so poses a threat to their safety and security — from piracy, for example.

Michelle Wiese Bockmann, market editor at Lloyd’s List Intelligence, believes there is no justification for turning off trackers near the Crimea or the Syrian coast.

“This practice is clearly not linked to piracy risks,” says Bockmann. “Other ships have their transponders on, so why don’t they?”

The BBC also obtained documents prepared by the Russian occupation authorities that list the farms where the grain is transferred.

A separate investigation by the BBC’s Russian and Ukrainian news services showed that, in some cases, the Russians are forcing Ukrainian farmers to sell grain at prices well below market rates and sign documents to prove they were bought “legally”.

While early reports were typically of direct theft by Russian forces, farmers suggest there has been a change in tactics as the Russians realize that if they pay nothing, future crops could be sabotaged. Farmers say they have to accept the low prices as they have no alternative and need to buy fuel and pay workers.

Emilie Pottle, an international law lawyer, told the BBC that such actions could violate the Geneva Convention and International Criminal Court (ICC) rules.

We have contacted Russian authorities to inquire about these allegations but have not yet received a response.

However, some officials in Russian-controlled areas have spoken openly about the withdrawal of Ukrainian grain from the areas they now control.

Additional reporting from Ukraine by Hanna Tsyba, Sira Thierij and Hanna Chornous

Additional reporting from London by Daniele Palumbo, Josh Cheetham, Jake Horton, Erwan Rivault and Andrei Zakharov

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