Ex-Belarus Interior Minister linked to network laundering Ukrainian grain – investigation
Russia, together with representatives of the Lukashenko regime, including former Belarusian Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov, has set up a multi-tier network to remove agricultural products from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories and launder them as “Russian” or “Belarusian,” with subsequent deliveries to third-country markets.
This was reported by Ukrinform, citing documents obtained by the Belarusian opposition organization BELPOL and provided to the agency.
“An analysis has identified the operation of a stable commercial and logistics network that ensures the seizure of agricultural products in the occupied territories of Ukraine, their documentary legalization through Russian structures, subsequent processing and change of country of origin in Belarus, and export to foreign markets as formally ‘legal’ goods,” BELPOL official representative Vladimir Zhigar told Ukrinform.
According to him, coordination of key assets and companies leads to a group of individuals affiliated with the former Interior Minister of the Republic of Belarus and ex-head of the Belarusian presidential security service, Vladimir Naumov.
Documents show that one of the key elements at the initial stage of the scheme is a structure created by the occupation authorities — the so-called State Corporation “Agrarian Donbas” (Donetsk), which acts as a centralized operator for the production and sale of agricultural goods from the occupied parts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions.
Among the partners of this structure is the Russian company Zorka Food, founded by the joint-stock company Zolotoy Rudnik (Moscow). A ballot from an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting of this company dated November 20, 2021, confirms the involvement of Vladimir Naumov himself as well as his children, Anastasia and Zakhar Naumov.
At the same time, Anastasia and Zakhar Naumov are co-founders of Zvezda Pharmaceutika DD LLC, registered in Minsk, which also appears in the supply chain. Another 50% of this company belongs to Belarusian citizen Oleg Korzhal, who is also the registered owner of Zorka Food LLC in Belarus’s Brest region – a company bearing the same name as the Moscow-based structure.
“The network is controlled by Vladimir Naumov, a former Belarusian Interior Minister who is under international sanctions. Formal ownership of assets is distributed among relatives and trusted associates, management is carried out through nominal directors, and the beneficiary himself avoids direct presence in corporate documents. This model is typical for circumventing sanctions and concealing the ultimate beneficial owner,” a BELPOL representative said.
The documents also detail specific transactions. Both companies – Zorka Food and Zvezda Pharmaceutika DD – signed supply contracts with Agrarian Donbas back in 2022. Cooperation between the two was also recorded. In particular, on February 8, 2023, Zorka Food shipped 20 tons of sunflower seeds from the 2021 harvest to Zvezda Pharmaceutika DD. The packing list directly lists Agrarian Donbas as the producer, and the delivery terms were specified as FCA–“DPR,” Volodarske settlement (occupied Donetsk region).
A separate episode concerns logistics through occupied Mariupol. On August 25, 2023, Zorka Food shipped 1,400 tons of wheat directly from Mariupol seaport. This is confirmed by a declaration of transport characteristics and a certificate issued by the Russian company TsNIIMF. In the documents, the producer is listed as “enterprises of the agro-industrial complex of the Russian Federation.”
In addition, the scheme involves the Chechen company Torgtrade LLC (Grozny). According to research protocols from the Rostov reference center of Russia’s agricultural watchdog, in May 2023 the company submitted sunflower seed samples for analysis from a 1,000-ton batch grown in the Dzhankoi district of temporarily occupied Crimea, with Belarus listed as the destination.
Under a framework agreement dated March 20, 2023, Torgtrade also cooperates with the Belarusian company Trial Expert LLC (Minsk), which later becomes a key element in changing the documented origin of the goods and re-exporting them.
According to BELPOL’s assessment, it is the Belarusian link that ensures the processing or repackaging of raw materials of Russian or occupation origin, followed by their registration as Belarusian products and export to third countries, including states in the Middle East.
“Belarus is effectively being used as a hub for ‘laundering’ the origin of goods. After processing, the foreign-trade commodity code and country of origin are changed, making it possible to export the products as Belarusian,” a BELPOL representative explained.
As Ukrinform previously reported, more than 2 million tons of grain were removed from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied territories last year alone, and overall Russia has already appropriated more than 15 million tons of Ukrainian grain.