Thread by @exit266

Let’s put some perspective on this CNN story about Russia allegedly shipping Ukrainian grain out of Crimea.

cnn.com/2022/05/23/pol…

Claim 1, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry estimates that 400,000 tons has been stolen since the invasion. This is likely true but to put it in perspective, in April, Ukraine claims to have exported 763,000 tonnes.

ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/1-ukraine…

Now tonnes and tons are actually different measurements but let’s not get pedantic shall we, we’ll go with “The Ukraine Defense Ministry says that Russia has stolen just over half a month’s current grain exports.”

Compared to the 22 Million tons Ukraine tells us they have in storage at the moment that’s 1.8%. At the rate Russia is going with those two ships which each carry 30,000 tons that’s 13+ trips they need to make to export all the grain they have stolen.

Claim 2, we see two Russian flagged ships loading grain. Can we prove this is grain from Ukraine? I would be very surprised if you could meet that burden. You would have to have eyes on that grain from the place it was stolen all the way to the Crimean port and loading.

Alternately you’d need to have a sample, that you had proof of being taken off the ship and then you’d somehow have to run a test to prove it was grown in Ukraine and that no one paid for it. Plausible, but not likely.

The plausible deniability comes in because Russia has that fancy new $4.5 billion Bridge from Rostov-on-Don to Crimea and there’s no reason they couldn’t be transporting grain to Sevastopol.

I also referenced a great thread from @Josyph earlier today that basically lays out that any chance of prosecuting the pillaging of grain is limited at best.

https://twitter.com/Josyph/status/1528129543751491584?s=20&t=kEWdrB9xDj53cHjJudq00A

So, is Russia stealing grain and shipping it to other countries? Probably, but it’s hard to prove and harder to prosecute and in the big picture it’s 1.8% of the available grain.

Keep your eyes on the prize and work on finding ways to get the remainder of Ukrainian grain to export because that’s a much bigger win for everyone. 22 Million tonnes at current export rates is 29 months, that math doesn’t work.

@UkrainesGrains #DigitalResistance