Relations between Ukraine and Israel have long been friendly and cooperative – that is, until the dispute over grain began. It started with a Facebook post by Katarina Yaresko, a journalist with the SeaCrime Project, part of the Myrotvorets Center, an independent organization that investigates crimes against Ukraine’s national security.
On April 12, it reported that the Russian cargo ship Abinsk had arrived at an Israeli port carrying stolen Ukrainian grain.
He said the Ebinsk had arrived in Haifa, Israel, carrying a cargo of 43,765.18 tonnes of wheat from Ukraine’s occupied territories. There was no official confirmation of this information at the time of publication.
War of words between foreign ministers
Two weeks later, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiha said that another ship carrying grain stolen by Russia from Ukraine’s occupied territories had stopped in Israel. As a result, the Israeli ambassador in Kyiv was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
“It is difficult to understand the lack of a proper response from Israel to Ukraine’s legitimate request regarding the previous ship delivering stolen goods to Haifa,” Sibiha said on social media platform X.
The same day, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded to Kiev’s outrage. “Evidence confirming the allegations has not yet been provided,” he wrote on X, adding that the matter will be investigated and Israeli authorities will act in accordance with the law.
“You did not even submit a request for legal aid before turning to the media and social networks,” he said. “Diplomatic relations, especially between friendly nations, are not conducted on Twitter or the media.”
For its part, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry released a timeline of the grain dispute. It said the issue was discussed by diplomats from both countries in late March and that on April 15, Ukraine requested international legal assistance from Israel in relation to the ship named Abinsk.
“Despite Ukraine’s request not to do so, the Israeli side completed the unloading of the ship ahead of schedule and allowed it to depart,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Ukraine prepared a package of sanctions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also escalated this controversy.
“In any normal country, the purchase of stolen goods is a criminal offense that has legal consequences. This especially applies to grain stolen by Russia,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on April 30.
He said that Russia is systematically removing grain from the occupied areas and exporting it. Zelensky said, “Such trade violates Israeli law. Ukraine has taken all necessary diplomatic measures to prevent such incidents.”
He emphasizes that Ukraine is working on a sanctions package based on intelligence. It will target all those involved in the transportation of this grain as well as those “looking to profit from such criminal activities”.
According to Zelensky, Kyiv is coordinating its measures with European partners to ensure that the individuals concerned are also placed on the European sanctions list.
call for proof
Israeli military expert David Sharp estimates that the situation would not have escalated if the Israeli side had received comprehensive evidence from Kiev regarding the origin of grain from the occupied territories.
“Nobody needs these problems – neither a deterioration in relations with Ukraine nor sanctions,” Sharp told DW. The question is what evidence Ukraine actually presented and what the Israeli side actually got.
Sharp emphasizes that Israel is a country with an independent judiciary, where private business relationships are protected by law. The Ministry of External Affairs cannot order any businessman to terminate the grain purchase contract. If you do so, the government official will be taken to court.
“Terminating a contract requires strong legal evidence, including intelligence evidence,” Sharp said. “If Ukraine wants Israel to block a deal, mere suspicions or social media posts are not enough. It must provide evidence that the Israeli government can use in court or present to the prosecutor’s office.”
Challenges in gathering evidence
Ivan As, chief adviser at the National Institute for Strategic Studies in Kiev, said this is not the first time Russia has sought to legalize stolen Ukrainian grain in this way. Grain is transported from occupied territories, mixed with Russian grain at transshipment depots, declared Russian grain, and finally resold.
“From our perspective, this is stolen grain, but to the buyer it may appear to be a legal product,” the foreign policy expert said. This makes it complicated to collect evidence and thus prosecute these schemes.
According to Serhiy Danilov of the Ukrainian Association of Middle East Studies, the Ukrainian embassy provided the Israeli side with intelligence information about the routes, grain shipments at sea, as well as the owners and the logistics behind the shipments. He criticizes Israel for ignoring all Ukraine’s warnings.
“Although the ship had not previously responded so strongly, now we are seeing a completely new dimension in Ukraine’s response,” Danilov told DW. “In his statement, Zelensky mentioned sanctions for the first time, including sanctions coordinated with the EU. This is no longer just a diplomatic protest, but a signal that concrete steps will be taken. The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s response was, frankly, unpleasant. It effectively disputed that there was sufficient evidence.”
Ukraine seeks legal assistance from Israel
Meanwhile, Kiev has sent a package of documents to the Israeli side to help it take action against a Russian ship carrying stolen Ukrainian grain. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced this on Telegram on April 29. The ship in question is called the Panormitis.
“A request for legal assistance has already been submitted to the relevant Israeli authorities,” Kravchenko said. He stressed that Ukraine is asking its Israeli partners to detain the ship and its cargo, search it, secure documents on the ship and cargo, take grain samples and interrogate crew members.
According to Kravchenko, since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 1.7 million tons of agricultural products with a total value of 20 billion hryvnia (equivalent to approximately €388 million/$455 million) have been illegally exported from the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories.
On April 30, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, citing Israeli newspaper The Marker, reported that the Israeli company Zenziper had ultimately refused to accept the shipment, which was likely stolen Ukrainian grain. The cargo ship had left Haifa.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgeny Kornichuk, told the news agency, “We have won; the cargo ship is leaving the port for neutral waters. We will see the criminal and sanctions proceedings through to the end.”
According to a report, the Russian supplier was informed of the order to refuse the ship’s cargo. Grain import company Zenziper says “the Russian supplier of grain shipments will have to find another location for unloading.”
“This is the first time that a grain shipment, which is believed to have been stolen in Ukraine, has not been accepted and unloaded in Israel,” Interfax-Ukraine quoted Israeli media as saying.
This article was originally written in Ukrainian.