Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, summoned the Israeli ambassador to Kyiv on Tuesday to protest what Kyiv says are shipments of Ukrainian grain that had arrived in Israel. Sybiha told the envoy to appear at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday morning so Kyiv could "present our protest note and request appropriate action."
The formal summons followed claims that a second vessel carrying stolen goods docked in Haifa on Monday evening, a development President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Tuesday when he said a shipment of Ukrainian grain had arrived at an Israeli port. Zelenskyy accused those moves of breaching Israeli law: "such transactions violate the legislation of the State of Israel itself," and he added sharply, "This is not and cannot be pure business. The Israeli authorities cannot fail to know which ships and with what cargo arrive at the country’s ports."
Kyiv said it is preparing a sanctions package aimed at people accused of transporting grain out of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, and Zelenskyy said new sanctions would target those who directly transport this grain and those individuals and legal entities trying to profit from the scheme. The announcement came as Ukraine stepped up public pressure on partners, repeating in diplomatic form what Kyiv framed online as ukraine summons israeli envoy.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, pushed back on Tuesday, saying "allegations are not evidence" and that "Diplomatic relations, especially between friendly nations, are not conducted on Twitter or in the media." Saar’s comments underscored an immediate rift between Kyiv’s public accusations and Jerusalem’s insistence on conventional diplomatic proof and procedure.
The dispute over grain arrived on a day of broader violence in the region’s north: Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery in the Black Sea on Tuesday, triggering what regional governor Veniamin Kondratiev described as a massive fire. Kondratiev said more than 160 people were fighting the blaze at the Rosneft-owned refinery and that residents had been evacuated to a temporary shelter set up at a nearby school. A previous drone attack on April 16 had already halted the refinery’s operations.
Kyiv’s summons and its public naming of ships and ports are the latest moves in a campaign to cut off trade ties that Kyiv says benefit Russia’s occupation. Russia currently occupies about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, and Ukraine has already imposed sanctions in the past on individuals and businesses accused of cooperating with Russian forces in those areas. The new measures Kyiv described this week are intended specifically to punish those linked to the movement of grain from occupied lands.
The tension between Kyiv’s public accusations and Jerusalem’s demand for evidence creates a narrow diplomatic seam. Sybiha framed the summons as an attempt to protect a cooperative bilateral relationship: "friendly Ukrainian-Israeli relations have the potential to benefit both countries, and Russia’s illegal trade with stolen Ukrainian grain should not undermine them," he said, signalling Kyiv’s desire to keep ties intact even as it presses for accountability.
What happens next will turn on Israel’s response to the protest note Kyiv said it presented and whether investigations follow. Kyiv is already preparing sanctions targeted at the networks it blames for moving grain out of occupied Ukrainian territory; if Israel does not open inquiries or take action, Kyiv’s threat of penalties is the clearest tool it has signalled it will use to enforce its claim. For now, the summons has put a friendly relationship to the test while the Tuapse strike deepens a week in which Kyiv has publicly escalated pressure on Russian economic and energy targets.
