Expert: There will be no problems with grain exports this year if the Armed Forces ensure security in the Black Sea

This year, if the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to ensure security in the Black Sea, no problems with grain exports should be expected. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Dmytro Kokhan, Deputy Chairman of the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council.

Our exports will definitely be good this year. If everything goes well and the Ukrainian Armed Forces ensure security in the Black Sea at the level it is now, we will have no problems with exports,

He recalled that last year, exports via the Black Sea became possible in November, and before that, grain was shipped via alternative routes. This year, the expert hopes that the harvest will go abroad earlier, and the harvest itself will be quite good.

The harvest will depend on the weather. There was no radical reduction in the area under crops compared to last year. Still, our economic situation is a bit better than last year, when we were leaving the season... There is no reason to say that this year's harvest will be significantly lower, we are waiting for the weather,

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Oleh Khomenko, CEO of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, said earlier that since 95% of grain exports are carried out by sea, ports have much greater opportunities to export "gray" grain. The estimated amount of unaccounted-for grain exported from Ukraine can now reach up to 5 million tons per year.

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Earlier it became known that the Bureau of Economic Security is investigating several criminal proceedings regarding gray grain exports. According to law enforcement officials, the most common scheme for such tax evasion worth tens of millions of hryvnias is the purchase of grain that has no documents of origin for cash and its subsequent export abroad using the details of "risky" or shell companies.

One of the most striking examples of gray exports is the criminal casesconcerning gray exports from the Olympex grain terminal in 2021-2023, when it was actively managed by Odesa businessmen Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko.

In particular, in January 2021, law enforcement officers became interested in a number of grain export companies associated with the GNT Group agricultural holding of Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko. Ferco LLC, Metalzukrain Corp Ltd, Grain Transshipment Complex Inzernoexport LLC, and Vtormeteksport, which belong to GNT Group, actively used the details of "risky" companies to conduct export operations. During the investigation, the BES territorial office in Odesa region identified at least three such "risky" companies: OUTSTAFF 19 LLC, ALICENTA TRADE LLC, and SOLTEK PRRSAKT LLC. In addition, the investigation found that the exported grain was stored, in particular, in the warehouses of Olympex Coupe International LLC, which is also controlled by Groza and Naumenko.

As a result of the investigation, law enforcement officers found that none of the above-mentioned "risky" companies had evidence of purchasing grain that was to be exported, which is more than 2,000 tons of corn, barley, and wheat (this is only what law enforcement officers found during searches). In addition, all of these companies violated financial and tax reporting requirements, demonstrated zero profitability, and underreported income tax.

Within this criminal proceeding alone, according to law enforcement estimates, the companies of Groza and Naumenko caused the state losses worth almost UAH 37.5 million. At the same time, the exporter of "gray" grains was Agiros LLC, owned by a well-known smuggler Vadym Alperin, against whom the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions in 2021 and who was deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. According to media reports, the grain was shipped by Attollo Granum, another company controlled by Groza and Naumenko.

This criminal proceeding is currently under investigation.

Another criminal proceedinginvolving Hroza and Naumenko's company Olympex Coupe International LLC is being investigated by the BES territorial office in Kyiv. It was opened a year later, in 2022, but it also concerns "gray" grain exports.

The case is being investigated under articles on tax evasion, forgery of documents for state registers, legalization (laundering) of proceeds of crime and illegal handling of weapons or ammunition.

The scheme used by Groza and Naumenko's company is identical to the one used earlier, with only the names of the fictitious companies differing, and not all of them. In particular, it involves Outstaff 19 LLC, mentioned in another criminal proceeding.

In addition to this company, they also used the "risky" companies Express Vse and AGROTRANS-GROUP. With their help, according to the investigation, at least 40 thousand tons of grains and oilseeds disappeared from the terminal in 2023.

In addition, BES detectives believethat criminal activity related to tax evasion through gray grain exports continues at the Olympex terminal.