KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Ukraine accused Israel on Tuesday of allowing the import of grain it says Russia stole from occupied areas, prompting a sharp exchange between officials.<\/p>\n
President Volodymyr Zelensky said a vessel carrying grain had arrived at an Israeli port and was preparing to unload, calling the trade illegal and warning of sanctions against those involved.<\/p>\n
Israel claimed that the vessel had not entered the port and had not yet submitted its documents. The MarineTraffic.com marine tracking website showed the ship had been in Haifa for several days.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn any normal country, purchasing stolen goods is an act that entails legal liability,\u201d Zelensky wrote on X, adding that Ukraine\u2019s intelligence services were preparing sanctions targeting companies and individuals profiting from the shipments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will also coordinate with European partners to ensure that the relevant individuals are included in European sanctions regimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the country\u2019s tax authority had opened an investigation into a ship expected to dock at Haifa port.<\/p>\n
Saar dismissed Zelensky\u2019s comments as \u201cTwitter diplomacy,\u201d telling a press conference in Jerusalem that Ukraine had not provided sufficient information or requested legal assistance.<\/p>\n
Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for Ukraine\u2019s Foreign Ministry, said Kyiv had informed Israeli authorities about the vessels in advance. He said more than two had arrived in Israel carrying agricultural products Ukraine described as illegally taken by Russia from occupied Ukrainian land.<\/p>\n
The ministry said it had summoned Israel\u2019s ambassador, Michael Brodsky, and handed him a note of protest over what it called a continuing flow of such shipments. It added that the origin of the grain had been established and that concealment methods, including ship-to-ship transfers in the Black Sea, were well known.<\/p>\n
Despite this, the cargo continued to reach Israeli ports and enter commercial circulation, the ministry said, accusing Israel of failing to respond to formal requests to detain the vessels and cargo.<\/p>\n
Kyiv described the issue as systemic rather than isolated, and urged Israel to halt imports it says involve stolen Ukrainian grain, warning the situation risks undermining bilateral relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Ukraine accused Israel on Tuesday of allowing the import of grain it says Russia stole from occupied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2028,3748,30720,14200,20556,37,31209,13222,31210,55,14067,4738,56,1220,22278],"class_list":{"0":"post-87894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-cargo","9":"tag-foreign-ministry","10":"tag-grain","11":"tag-haifa","12":"tag-individual","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-israeli-port","15":"tag-kyiv","16":"tag-normal-country","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-sanction","19":"tag-ship","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-vessel","22":"tag-zelensky"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116483433727418729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}