Belarusian government official’s companies exported stolen Ukrainian grain through Mariupol port, investigation finds

Former Belarusian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov, together with Russian companies, created a network for the export of agricultural products from the occupied regions of Ukraine.

This was reported by USM with reference to Ukrinform and the investigation of the Belarusian opposition organization BELPOL.

Thus, BELPOL discovered a criminal network that ensures the seizure of agricultural products in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Subsequently, agricultural products are documented “legalized” through Russian structures, processed and exported to foreign markets under the guise of “legal” goods, said BELPOL representative Vladimir Zhygar.

According to him, the coordination of key assets and companies leads to a group of individuals affiliated with the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, former head of the security service of the President of the Republic of Belarus Vladimir Naumov.

The initial link of the criminal network is the so-called company “Gosudarstvennaya korporatsiya “Agrarny Donbass””, located in Donetsk and engaged in the sale of agricultural products from the occupied parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.

Among the partners of this structure is the Russian company “Zorka Food”, the founder of which is the joint-stock company “Zolotoy Rudnik”. The latter is located in Moscow, and it is with it that the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Vladimir Naumov and his children are associated.

“The network is controlled by Vladimir Naumov, the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Belarus, who is under international sanctions. Formal ownership of assets is distributed between relatives and trusted persons, management is carried out through nominal directors, and the beneficiary himself avoids direct presence in corporate documents,” BELPOL notes.

Cooperation between all companies has been repeatedly recorded, one of the episodes of criminal activity concerns occupied Mariupol. Thus, on August 25, 2023, Zorka Food shipped 1,400 tons of wheat directly from the seaport of Mariupol. In the documents, the manufacturer indicated “enterprises of the agro-industrial complex of the Russian Federation”.

According to BELPOL, it is the Belarusian link that ensures the processing or transshipment of stolen Ukrainian raw materials with their subsequent registration as Belarusian and export to third countries, in particular the countries of the Middle East.

Earlier, the occupation head of the Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, declared his readiness to provide Belarus with part of the Azov-Black Sea coast.