Russian oligarch Alexander Tkachov's company, Agrocomplex, has seized around 400,000 acres of farmland belonging to three Ukrainian agribusinesses in Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Tkachov, an ally of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is a former agriculture minister and governor of Russia's Krasnodar Krai.
The Ukrainian authorities are investigating the theft of farmland by Tkachov’s company, according to the newspaper.
“Russia is taking over the economy in occupied territories and using that control to help control the whole area,” Dmytro Skorniakov, CEO of Ukrainian agricultural company HarvEast Holding, said.
HarvEast has lost 100,000 acres in Russian-occupied parts of Donetsk Oblast, while Nibulon, another agribusiness firm, has lost 50,000 acres, and Agroton has accused Agrocomplex of stealing 250,000 acres.
As of Nov. 10, an estimated 2.8 million metric tons of grain and 1.2 million tons of oil seeds with a combined value of $1.87 billion had been destroyed or stolen due to Russia’s war against Ukraine, according to the Kyiv School of Economics.
Research using satellite imagery from NASA’s food security and agriculture program showed that Russia had collected almost 6 million tons of wheat from occupied territories, Bloomberg reported on Dec. 3.
Swiss Prosecutor General Stefan Blaettler said in July that selling looted raw materials could constitute a war crime.
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Friday, August 15
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Air Force One landed at Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, the site of the upcoming talks between the two leaders.
Nearly half of the active Starlink satellite terminals that USAID delivered to Ukraine were present in territories fully or partially occupied by Russia, raising concerns about potential misuse, according to a U.S. Inspector General report.
The Kyiv Independent visited the front-line city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast to hear from its residents what they think about the prospects of land swaps between Ukraine and Russia ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska.
"The enemy struck civilian infrastructure in the central part of Sumy," Governor Oleh Hryhorov said.
The corps claimed that Ukrainian units are operating inside the city, and civilians can move about, though travel within Pokrovsk remains heavily restricted. It is still possible to reach the city, the statement added.
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Russian officials have not named the cause of the explosion, but preliminary accounts reported by Russian media point to possible safety violations in the workshop.
"This is a Russian tactic before any negotiations," Alina Alekseeva, the deputy head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation, told the Kyiv Independent.
The Elysee Palace described the dialogue between the two leaders as "close and constant," but did not provide a specific date or location for the follow-up meeting.
Beka Museum urged immediate action, highlighting Russian President Vladimir Putin's role in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children and other atrocities committed under his rule.
The issue concerns refugees who have lived in the country since Aug. 16, 2023, under the Uniting for Ukraine program, devised by the Biden administration to allow Ukrainians to stay in the country on humanitarian parole.
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