UN reports ‘anecdotal evidence’ Russia looting Ukrainian grain supply

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization senior official Josef Schmidhuber said Friday there is “anecdotal evidence”of Russia stealing Ukraine’s grain supply. 

“There is anecdotal evidence that Russian troops have destroyed storage capacity and that they are looting the storage grain that is available,” Schmidhuber said at a bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva, adding Russia has also stolen farm equipment. 

Schmidhuber believes 700,000 tons of grain have been stolen from Ukraine since the war began. 

“But that’s all anecdotal evidence. There is no statistical data for that,” he added. 

Schmidhuber’s comments come after Ukrainian officials said last week that Russia was taking the country’s grain. 

“I personally hear this from many silo owners in the occupied territory. This is outright robbery. And this is happening everywhere in occupied territory,” Ukrainian agriculture minister Mykola Solskyi said, Reuters reported. 

The war in Ukraine has threatened food security globally as the country is a major producer of wheat and grains. 

Ukraine is known as the “breadbasket of Europe,” with the country exporting $6 billion worth of agricultural products to the European Union in 2020.