A blacklisted, former Belarusian official is working with Russia to disguise the origin of agricultural products from Ukraine’s occupied territories, according to new reporting by Ukrinform.

The news agency, which is Ukraine’s only national news service and is controlled by the country’s Cabinet of Ministers, said it based its reporting on documents obtained by the Belarusian opposition group BELPOL. The report did not state how the documents were obtained or if Ukrinform had confirmed their validity. 

The newly published documents outline how grain and other crops harvested in Ukraine’s occupied territories are laundered through a Russia-controlled entity, processed so as to appear to be sourced from Belarus, and exported to foreign markets as “legal” goods, Ukrinform said. 

The scheme relies on Agrarian Donbas, a legal entity controlled by occupying forces in Ukraine that manages the production and sale of agricultural goods originating from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, according to the report. Among Agrarian Donbas’ partners is Zorka Food, a Russian firm founded by the Moscow-based joint stock company Zolotov Rudnick. 

Zolotov Rudnick, Ukrinform and BELPOL claim, is tied to former Belarusian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov and his children, Anastasia and Zakhar. Naumov, who formerly ran the Belarusian presidential security service, has for years been subject to a host of international sanctions for his involvement in alleged human-rights abuses. 

Another company in the illicit supply chain is the Minsk-registered Zvezda Pharmaceutika DD LLC, co-founded by Naumov’s children. Pharmaceutika is 50-percent owned by Oleg Korzhal, a Belarusian citizen who is also the registered owner of a second Zorka Food. LLC, based in Belarus’ Brest region, the news agency said. 

Zorka Food and Zvezda Pharmaceutika both signed deals with Agrarian Donbas in 2022, and in 2023 Zorka Food shipped approximately 20 tons of sunflower seeds to Zvezda Pharmaceutika. Agrarian Donbas was listed on the packing list, according to the report, which also cited a 2023 episode in which Zorka Food shipped 1,400 tons of wheat out of the Mariupol seaport in Donetsk. 

The network of companies also includes the Chechen firm Torgtrade LLC, according to the report. Records indicate that the company has shipped at least 1,000 tons of Ukraine-sourced sunflower seeds to Belarus and has separately coordinated with Belarusian firm Trial Expert LLC, which has facilitated the creation of documentation obscuring the origin of goods as well as their re-exportations to third countries.

“Belarus is effectively being used as a hub for ‘laundering’ the origin of goods,” an unnamed BELPOL representative told Ukrinform. “After processing, the foreign-trade commodity code and country of origin are changed, making it possible to export the products as Belarusian.”

Read more at Ukrinform