Saudi Arabia buys contraband grain from Crimea via Russia

Saudi Arabia has become a new importer of grain exported from the occupied Crimea, which is under Western sanctions. This is stated in a joint investigation by Bellingcat. Journalists have established that the dry cargo ship "Krasnodar" made at least two trips from the "Avlita" grain terminal in Sevastopol to Saudi Arabia between September and November 2025. In September, the ship arrived at the port of King Abdullah, and in November, it arrived at the port of Jazan. After leaving Jazan on November 23, the ship returned to the Black Sea via the Bosphorus, and the next day it stopped transmitting AIS data for nine days. Similar periods of silence were recorded during previous trips. Bellingcat notes that in both cases, the "Krasnodar" was the only ship in the area that lost its AIS signal, making the theory of mass jamming unlikely. Satellite images from Planet Labs and Sentinel-2 also did not confirm the presence of the ship in the port of Kavkaz, as ...