Russian military loots US$5-million in farm equipment and steals grain from Ukraine.
By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com; Image via Dan Loran on www.unsplash.com
No one ever claimed war was anything other than a nasty business, though the Russian Federation is trying to take things to an ag-level.
Although not technically called a war yet, the Russia invasion of Ukraine has led to its own fair share of ugliness, ethically-speaking.
According to a report from CNN, Russian troops within Melitopol, a Ukrainian city, have looted the contents of a John Deere dealership, shipping the equipment to Chechnya.
It was only after the Russians had completed the journey, it was only then that it was discovered that the equipment had been remotely locked by Ukrainian workers at the ag company.
As such, so far and no working farm equipment.
The initial theft included two combine harvesters worth a combined US$600,000, a tractor and a seeder, per CNN’s source.
That was the initial theft. Over the next few weeks, 27 additional pieces of ag equipment was stolen from the John Deere location, bringing the total up to US$5 million of looted machinery.
While the Russians are currently stymied in their attempts to use the ag equipment, they are currently working on ways to unlock it.
For the time being, Ukrainian farmers are being allowed to farm by the Russian military—with severe checks on the people and equipment occurring on a daily basis. However, farming during this tense time has caused many farmers to have to flee in the middle of their work—quickly exiting their vehicles as volleys of ammunition fly over head—returning only when they feel it is safe enough to continue.
Flak jackets and military-grade helmets have become the uniform for the typical Ukrainian farmer.
In other Ukraine news, the country’s agriculture minister Taras Vysotskiy said that Russia had stolen “several hundred thousand tonnes of grain from Russia occupied areas.
Vysotskiy expressed concern that the 1.5 million tonnes of grain stored in other occupied territories might be next on the looting list.
The loss of the grain could cause a global food security issue, not to mention within Ukraine itself.