The agricultural cluster “Brovary” of A.G.R. Group. Group in the spring of 2022 was occupied by Russian troops invading the northern regions of Ukraine, missile and artillery fire damaged the holding’s operational silo, grain drying complex and grain storage facility with a capacity of 20 thousand tons.
Misak Khidiryan, the owner of the agricultural group, said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine that it took more than UAH 5 million and a month and a half of intensive work to restore the cluster’s performance, as the agricultural holding was in a hurry to conduct the sowing and harvesting campaigns on time.
In addition, Russian shelling also damaged A.G.R. Group’s winter storage equipment, which resulted in damage to John Deere tractors and trailed units.
“Our Brovary cluster was under occupation in the spring. The Russian occupants knocked out the gates with an APC, took the guards hostage and started looting: they stole diesel fuel and equipment from the warehouses, damaged expensive farm equipment… To the point that the occupants broke the doors of self-propelled sprayers in order to get the radio sets. They couldn’t take them off – they just gutted the panels,” said the owner of A.G.R. Group owner told in an interview.
Khidiryan specified that in addition to the restoration of agricultural buildings, clearance of the cluster “Brovary” took about 10 days. Also in the fields remained a lot of damaged and destroyed military equipment of the occupants.
“Near the Brovary cluster there was a lot of broken Russian equipment, which we pulled with our tractors for further transfer to the AFU – there were mostly broken tanks, but there were also intact ones. There were mostly broken tanks, but there were also intact ones. It was so that from the fields we had to pull out one tank with three powerful tractors. We also went to neighboring villages and pulled out missile trophies from people’s gardens,” noted Khidiryan.
As reported with reference to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine (NAAS), the total direct damage caused to the agricultural sector of Ukraine as a result of the full-scale Russian invasion reached $9.3-9.8 billion by the end of 2022, which is comparable to the total profits of the country’s agricultural enterprises in 2020 and 2021.
This figure includes damage from the blockade of Ukrainian seaports and forced changes in export logistics ($7.5-8.0 billion), the cost of unsold last year’s grain ($0.5 billion) and the cost of warehouses and elevators destroyed or seized by the occupiers ($1.3 billion).
The A.G.R. Group holding includes more than 20 companies. Its main activities are trade of agricultural products, cultivation and storage of crops and livestock breeding.
A.G.R. Group cultivates land in Poltava, Kiev, Chernigov, Nikolaev and Sumy regions. All grown products are sold on foreign markets.
The president of the holding and head of its supervisory board is businessman Misak Khidirian.
With the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion, A.G.R. Group. Group and MK Merchants SA, owned by businessman Misak Khidiryan, reoriented logistics routes from Ukrainian seaports to the EU market via road and rail transport as well as the river ports of Reni and Izmail.
Misak Khidiryan told Interfax-Ukraine news agency that the group of companies will continue to export part of its agricultural products through the land border crossings with the EU and along the Danube River even after the liberation of the occupied territories from the Russian troops and Ukraine’s resumption of full trade in the Black Sea.
According to his data, after the full-scale war began, the group of companies searched for elevator facilities in Western Ukraine and transported crop stocks there from the central regions of the country. Later on, logistic channels by road and rail were established for the marketing of agricultural products in the European Union. The group of companies already has an agreement to cooperate with a European trading company with quite a powerful infrastructure throughout Europe, where they have already started supplying their agricultural products.
“In addition, we have agreed that we will work together to load their volumes and have given guarantees that after our victory and the liberation of the occupied territories, we will maintain our partnership, even when the ports are opened and maritime logistics are again a priority. Perhaps even consider with the board of the A.G.R. Group to buy new clusters in the West of Ukraine for a more convenient partnership,” Misak Khidiryan told the agency.
According to him, deep-sea ports are currently inaccessible for export, so road and rail transport is used, as well as Reni and Izmail ports. However, such logistics is much more expensive than sea exports, and it also involves a number of difficulties, such as the inability of drivers – its citizens – to travel outside Ukraine, or large queues of ships in the ports.
However, in addition to the European direction, activity in several countries of the Middle East has been stepped up. “Our offices are operating there and we are running domestic sales to the maximum, because we need additional margin due to high logistics costs. We have to clearly understand that the logistics leverage has increased, freight prices have gone up, energy and fuel prices have gone up, and as a result we are spending about $200 on a ton of exports. $200 on our commodity is a huge amount of money, we used to spend $45-50 per ton,” stated Misak Khidiryan.
Agroholding A.G.R. Group includes more than 20 companies. The main direction of its activity is trade in agricultural products, cultivation and storage of crops, as well as cattle breeding.
A.G.R. Group cultivates land in Poltava, Kiev, Chernigov, Nikolaev and Sumy regions. All grown products are sold on foreign markets.
The president of the holding and head of its supervisory board is businessman Misak Khidirian.
A.G.R.GROUP, agricultural cluster, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, Khidiryan, Merchants, RIVER PORT'S
