Russian Siberian Territory Passes Resolution to Seize Grain in Ukraine’s Kherson Region

The local government in Russia’s third-largest Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk passed a resolution on April 27 to expropriate grain from the occupied parts of Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson.

The news release by the Krasnoyarsk Krai (territory) government, says the decision was made partly because there “is only one cucumber production plant in the region.”

The adverse effects of “foreign sanctions” on Russia due to its ongoing, unprovoked war against Ukraine was also cited as a reason for seizing grain in the occupied parts of Ukraine.

“The expropriation of last year’s and this year’s crop surpluses from farmers in the Kherson region will become one of the tools to assist small businesses and consumer cooperatives,” the Russian federal subject’s government statement said.

Kherson, a port city in southern Ukraine bordering the occupied peninsula of Crimea, is the only major city to be fully taken over by invading Russian forces. Local residents resist the occupying forces by staging rallies at the risk of force being used against them, arrest and torture.

More than 200 people in the city of about 300,000 people have disappeared at the hands of invading Russian authorities, Kherson Mayor Ihor Kolykhayev told Current Time, a joint project by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The grain seizures are reminiscent of the forced famine of Ukrainians in 1932-1933 when Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin implemented policies through his henchmen to seize crops and foodstuffs from Ukraine’s countryside.

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