Farm machinery stolen by Russian troops remotely disabled

Russian troops raided a John Deere dealership in an occupied Ukrainian city and stole £4m worth of tractors and combine harvesters.

The looted farm machinery was taken from an Agrotek dealership in Melitopol, in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast (region) of south-eastern Ukraine, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March.

According to a report by CNN, the looters transported the machinery more than 700 miles to Chechnya.

See also: Ukraine’s spring planting campaign gathers momentum

The looting started with two combine harvesters, worth about £240,000 each, a tractor and a drill. Since then, 27 bits of farming kit have been removed from the dealership.

A video posted on the Twitter site @ua_industrial shows some of the stolen Ukrainian farm machinery, including John Deere tractors, a sprayer and Claas combines, being transported on flatbed lorries under the protection of traffic police.

Окупанти вивозять сільськогосподарську техніку, вкрадену на Донеччині, на росію. Абсолютно офіційно у супроводі ДАІ.

Зруйнували міста та інфраструктуру, вкрали зерно та продукцію, вкрали техніку для сільського господарства… pic.twitter.com/N7OAA3QHti

— Промисловий Портал (@ua_industrial) May 1, 2022

But according to the report, the theft has not gone entirely to plan for the Russian forces.

GPS tracking

The machines were fitted with GPS equipment which has allowed their progress to be tracked. They were last located in the village of Zakhan Yurt in Chechnya.

However, because the machinery can be controlled remotely, it has been disabled, making it inoperable.

The contact told the CNN: “When the invaders drove the stolen harvesters to Chechnya, they realised that they could not even turn them on, because the harvesters were locked remotely.”

Some of the stolen machinery has reportedly been found abandoned at a farm near Grozny in Chechnya.

But the contact said the looters had found consultants in Russia who were trying to bypass the protection.

“Even if they sell the harvesters for spare parts, they will earn some money,” the contact added.

Meanwhile, according to other reports Russian troops have been stealing grain from silos in the Melitopol region to take to Crimea.

The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, posted a video last week showing trucks loaded with stolen grain leaving the city.

Seaports closed

Ukraine’s ministry of agriculture has issued a statement saying the government has decided to close some of the country’s seaports “due to an inability to ensure an adequate level of shipping safety”.

The ports of Berdyansk, Mariupol, Skadocsk and Kherson would be closed until Ukraine regained control of them, the statement said.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday 2 May that Ukraine could lose tens of millions of tonnes of grain because  Russia controlled its Black Sea shipping ports, triggering a food crisis that could affect Europe, Africa and Asia.

Almost 4.5m tonnes of grain remains blocked at Ukrainian ports as exports have stalled since the Russian invasion, according to Martin Frick, director of the United Nations World Food Programme in Germany.