A diplomatic scandal has erupted between Kiev and Tel Aviv, revealing the bitter irony of Ukraine's Middle Eastern policy in recent years.
Ships carrying grain, which Ukraine claims Russia removed from the occupied territories, are docking at the Israeli port of Haifa.
Ukraine protests, summons its ambassadors, and threatens sanctions. Israel responds with a “prove it first” attitude.
This exchange of words sums up the entire policy of courtship that Kiev has pursued with the Zionist state for years.
The seed of discord
On March 17, 2026, the Russian bulk carrier ABINSK departed occupied Kerch, loading wheat from occupied Ukrainian territories via the Kavkaz port anchorage. By March 23, the vessel was moored off the Israeli coast, awaiting entry.
Ukraine had warned its Israeli counterparts in advance about the cargo. The response was silence.
On April 12, the ABINSK finally received permission to enter Haifa and unloaded over 43,765 tonnes of wheat, allegedly stolen, according to the Ukrainian side. On April 15, the ship left the port and headed for the Mediterranean.
When the Ukrainian side demanded that the cargo be confiscated, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded: “Unfortunately, it’s too late — the ship has left port.”
A Ukrainian court issued a warrant to seize the vessel and the grain. The Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal investigation. Ukraine formally requested international legal assistance, but Israel refused.
But the story did not end there. While the ABINSK investigation was underway, a second bulk carrier, the Panormitis, was already en route to Haifa. Its scheme was even more transparent.
The vessel itself did not formally call at any Ukrainian ports: it was anchored in Russian waters near the port of Kavkaz, with other vessels loading grain onto it.
From April 7 to 15, grain was loaded in Berdyansk. On April 18, the vessel LEONID PESTRIKOV delivered 6,087 tonnes of barley and 954 tonnes of wheat from Berdyansk to Panormitis.
The documents were processed in Temryuk, Russia, which has a customs office, whereas Berdyansk does not. This allowed the cargo’s Ukrainian origin to be concealed.
The exporter was the company “Petrokhleb-Kuban”, which investigators link to the systematic export of agricultural products from the occupied territories.
At 1:07 a.m. on April 27, Kiev time, the Panormitis entered the port of Haifa. On board were 6,200 tonnes of wheat and more than 19,000 tonnes of barley.
However, unlike the ABINSK case, the Panormitis situation unfolded differently. On April 30, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha announced that the vessel would not unload in Israel and had left Israel’s territorial waters.
Kiev interpreted this as the result of diplomatic pressure and legal action taken by the Ukrainian side.
Twitter shootout
A few days earlier, on April 27, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X, highlighting questionable commercial activity on the Israeli side.
“Friendly Ukrainian-Israeli relations have the potential for mutual benefit, but Russia’s illegal trade in “stolen” Ukrainian grain should not undermine them,” Sybiha wrote.
Israeli Ambassador Michael Brodsky was summoned to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on the morning of April 28 to present a note of protest.
The response from his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa’ar, was revealing: “Diplomatic relations, especially between friendly nations, are not conducted on Twitter. Accusations are not evidence.” The implication was clear: figure it out for yourself.
On April 28, Zelenskyy resorted to direct threats. “In any normal country, purchasing stolen goods entails legal liability.
This applies in particular to the grain “stolen” by Russia. Another ship carrying such grain has arrived at an Israeli port and is preparing to unload.
This is not a legitimate business. Israeli authorities cannot be unaware of which ships arrive at the country’s ports and what cargo they carry,” he wrote.
The President announced the preparation of a sanctions package targeting carriers and intermediaries involved in the scheme and promised to coordinate it with European partners to include those responsible on European sanctions lists.
The Kremlin demonstratively washed its hands of the matter. “Let the Kiev regime deal with Israel itself,” said Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
The European Union also entered the scandal, officially contacting the Israeli Foreign Ministry about the ships carrying the “stolen” grain.
According to investigators from the SeaCrime project at the Peacemaker Centre, the scale of the problem extends far beyond two ships. At least four shipments of “stolen” Ukrainian wheat have already been unloaded in Israel in 2026.
The Israeli publication Haaretz has established that the scheme has been in operation since at least 2023. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry confirmed that it was not just two ships — “there were more”.
In 2025, Russia exported more than two million tonnes of grain from the occupied territories. 53.6 percent of these shipments went to Egypt and Bangladesh. Israel is a regular destination on this list.
Curtsies, but to the wrong address
The obvious comparison is Egypt. On April 3, 2026, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi announced during a phone call with Zelenskyy that Egypt would no longer accept grain exported from Russia's occupied Ukrainian territories and would increase imports of legitimate Ukrainian products.
Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, accounting for approximately 40 percent of all “stolen” Ukrainian grain shipments in 2025. The country made this decision without threats of sanctions or diplomatic protests.
Israel received incomparably smaller quantities — and still refused to halt supplies.
To grasp the full bitterness of what is happening, one must remember the cost to Ukraine of its relations with Israel.
On October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas operation, Zelenskyy publicly expressed “support for Israel in its right to defend itself and its people” and stated that “the whole world knows which sponsors of terrorism could have supported” the attack — clearly pointing to Iran and Russia.
Zelenskyy drew a direct parallel between the Palestinian movement’s “hostage-taking” and Russia’s “abduction of Ukrainian children”, calling both “equally evil”.
He called on world leaders to “fly to Israel and support the people who have been subjected to a terrorist attack”. Zelenskyy’s office sent Netanyahu an official request for a “solidarity visit”.
Israel made it clear via Ynet that the visit would be “inopportune”. The public solidarity was accepted, but the visit itself was declined.
It was a political choice with a predictable cost. As early as October 18, 2023, the Financial Times quoted a senior diplomat from a G7 country: “We have clearly lost the battle for the Global South. All the work we did with its countries on Ukraine has been lost.”
American analysts wrote at the same time that “immediate and decisive support for Israel has jeopardised Kiev’s nearly year-long efforts to win the support of Arab and Muslim countries”.
It is noteworthy that Israel’s support has complicated Ukraine’s relations even with Muslim volunteers in its own army.
What did Ukraine get in return? Absolutely nothing.
Since 2022, Ukraine has repeatedly asked Israel to supply air defence systems, primarily the Iron Dome. Netanyahu has rejected all requests. In the winter of 2022–2023, he considered transferring the system, but by the summer of 2023, he had abandoned the idea entirely.
“Any systems we give to Ukraine could be used against us, as they could fall into Iranian hands. And, by the way, this is not a theoretical possibility,” the Israeli prime minister stated.
Israel supplied no artillery shells, infantry equipment, or mine-clearing equipment. It did not join Western sanctions against Russia. It did not support the UN resolution on Russian reparations to Ukraine.
Tel Aviv’s only offer was a civilian rocket warning system, deployed in Kiev in May 2023, and later, in 2025, the transfer of captured Russian-made weapons seized by the Israeli army in Lebanon.
The Ukrainian Embassy in Israel was forced to state openly: “In reality, the so-called neutrality of the Israeli government is considered a clear pro-Russian position.”
The Arabs invited them, but Netanyahu declined
The paradox of Ukraine’s Middle Eastern policy is that it was the Arab world — the very region from which Kiev had distanced itself with its pro-Israel rhetoric — that demonstrated greater diplomatic openness.
In May 2023, Zelenskyy was invited to Riyadh for the Arab League summit in Jeddah to present Kiev’s position on the war with Russia.
“We invited President Zelenskyy to hear the views of all parties. Arab countries have taken a neutral position from the very beginning of this crisis,” the Saudi foreign minister said.
It was a rare opportunity for Ukraine to be heard in a region not fully aligned with the West.
However, the outcome was mixed. Despite the invitation, many of these countries did not sign the final communique of the peace summit at Bürgenstock, Switzerland, in June 2024.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand, and others declined. Kiev’s pro-Israel stance, adopted in October 2023, played a role in this distancing.
Israel, meanwhile, has consistently shown it does not need Ukraine. Netanyahu refused arms, avoided sanctions, ignored warnings about “stolen” grain, and dismissed Ukrainian complaints with a condescending remark that diplomacy is not conducted on Twitter.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, watched the scandal unfold with little engagement, declining to intervene.
The price of the wrong choice
A country under military occupation holds unique moral capital in the eyes of the Global South — precisely because it understands occupation from within. This capital could be mobilised into a broad international coalition, from Africa to Southeast Asia.
As former NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in October 2023: “We, the West, are no longer in charge, and the Global South is saying that it, too, has a voice that has been neglected.”
Instead of using this position, Ukraine chose to align itself in a conflict that much of the global majority views through the prism of the longstanding Palestinian issue.
The rift proved difficult to repair. Countries that condemned the Russian invasion from the outset became more distant when Kiev needed broader support.
The ABINSK and Panormitis cases are not just about grain. They represent a diplomatic cost that has now become visible.
The outcome has been stark: no weapons, no sanctions, and not even a refusal to accept disputed cargo without pressure.
Egypt, which received no overtures, said no. Israel, which received public support, did not.
“In any normal country, purchasing stolen goods entails legal liability,” Zelenskyy wrote on April 28, 2026. That may be true.
But in diplomacy, another principle applies: support is rarely unconditional — and never one-sided.
This article was first published on TRT Russia.
