The saga is over: Israel has decided not to purchase wheat stolen from Ukraine, following the diplomatic crisis that erupted over the issue.
The Israel Grain Importers Association announced that "in light of the circumstances, the grain import company Tzentsiper is forced to reject the Russian vessel, which is carrying a shipment of wheat at the heart of the storm with Ukraine. The Russian supplier of the wheat cargo will have to find another destination at which to unload it."
The vessel Panormitis, sailing under the Panamanian flag, entered Haifa Bay on Sunday. According to a report by Yekaterina Yaresko, a journalist with SeaKrime, a project that tracks ships suspected of involvement in the trade of stolen grain, the ship is carrying 6,201 tons of wheat and 19,043 tons of barley.
The ship has been at the center of a diplomatic confrontation that developed in recent days between Israel and Ukraine over the import of "stolen" grain from Russian-occupied territories. Ukraine, considered the "breadbasket of Europe," has been battling the phenomenon since Russia's occupation of Donbas in 2014, and even more so since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. Under this scheme, Russia seizes wheat and barley crops from fertile regions under its occupation and transports them to global markets while obscuring their origin, through ship-to-ship transfers between bulk carriers at sea and the reissuing of documents at Russian ports.
The West has largely avoided buying this grain, making Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Bangladesh the main buyers. A Haaretz investigation found that at least four such shipments have already been unloaded at Israeli ports this year.
