“Do Not Buy Grain Stolen from Ukraine”

Against the background of the occupiers’ taking to Russia wheat, vegetables, other products and agricultural machinery from Kherson region and other regions of Ukraine, quite relevant is the “Appeal of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian Emigration” which is kept in the Intelligence’s archives. It is another confirmation that Muscovy’s policy towards Ukraine (both today and in the past) has always been the same – aggressive, looting, barbaric.

Here is an extract from the “Appeal” to the peoples of the world to save Ukraine, published in Paris in June 1930:

“…The Moscow government is not happy with the imposition of its regime, it is ruining economically the people who had the misfortune to fall under its rule… The system of forcible sale of grain, requisitions… are bankrupting Ukraine.

… He (Ukrainian peasant) is deprived of his cattle, his stock, all his property, acquired through hard work over many years. These measures, seen by the Communists as a triumph of their doctrine, are aimed at ruining the peasantry and thus defeating Ukraine's active resistance against the Moscow occupiers.… The looting is accompanied by unprecedented terror and thousands of arrests, mass deportations to Siberia and the Solovki, and death sentences. The most determined of the peasants seriously resist the Communists, while others, being at a loss, try to flee to Poland and Romania…

On behalf of the huge number of Ukrainian emigrants settled in Europe, we appeal to the civilized world and ask not to support unfair Soviet trade, not to buy Ukrainian grain covered with the blood of our peasantry, not to finance the occupying Soviet power in Ukraine…

Do not buy grain stolen from Ukraine. Stop trading with the Soviets. By trading with the Soviets, you support the Russian occupation army in Ukraine, you support destruction, terror, famine, you help spread criminal propaganda around the world and promote political attacks against yourselves, against world civilization” (BSA of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. - V. 1. – Case 12628. - V. 8. - P. 44).

These appeals, almost a century old, are in line with current official statements, including from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, which warned grain-importing countries that they should not buy grain from Russia.

“The Russian occupiers are stealing Ukrainian grain and either consuming it themselves or attempting to sell it on international markets. The plunder of food resources from the territory of an independent sovereign state is one of the aspects of looting.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has warned consumer countries that grain consignments exported by Russia could partially or completely contain stolen grain obtained as a result of Russian occupation authorities’ plundering. We believe that any country that knowingly purchases stolen grain is considered to be complicit in the crime”, reads the statement.