[Witness spoke in Ukrainian, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you, distinguished colleague. The grain that is being taken out of Ukraine is wheat. We have in these regions large storage of wheat. We see that about 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes has already been taken out of the country by the Russians. They've loaded it in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. Every ship leaving Sevastopol loaded with grain is loaded with Ukrainian grain because they have no other wheat there. This grain is difficult to sell. We have reacted to this and were able to turn these ships away from Egypt where they were initially heading.
They were diverted and went to Syria. We have no allies in Syria. That's where those ships arrived. Here's what we're observing lately. They are now taking this grain to Russia. They mix it with the Russian grain and claim that the origin of this grain is Russian, that it's been harvested in Russia. Since there is no ban on Russian grain, realistically I understand how difficult in this situation it would be to put an export ban on Russian grain given the prices and given the needs in North Africa and Asia. We try to track this stolen grain, but it takes a separate investigation for each case. You can never be quite sure whether the grain is just Russian grain or if it's a mix of Ukrainian and Russian grain, and the documents have been falsified.
We have been collecting evidence and have been talking to the G7 agriculture ministers. We spoke with them four weeks ago in Stuttgart. We will be asking for sanctions against shipowners who are transporting such grain if we have evidence about that, and sanctions against those who are buying and selling that grain in order to discourage this practice from happening in the future and making it more complicated for Russia.