On Monday, the Ukrainian foreign minister said that if Israel accepted “stolen grain,” it would harm bilateral relations between the two countries, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, threatened Israel with sanctions.

A set up?

“In any normal country, purchasing stolen goods is an act that entails legal liability,” Zelenskyy wrote. “This applies, in particular, to grain stolen by Russia.”

Eugene Kontorovich, professor of law at George Mason University and executive director of its Middle East and international law center and director of the international law department at the Jerusalem think tank Kohelet Policy Forum, disputed Zelenskyy’s assertion of legal liability.

“There is absolutely no legal prohibition on such imports. Israel is not required to boycott Russian-occupied areas,” he told JNS. “Most nations on earth don’t, but Ukraine is not threatening to boycott Turkey or Lebanon. This looks like a deliberate effort to set Israel up for E.U. sanctions, which the European Union has wanted to impose anyway.”

The union said recently that it is mulling sanctions against Israel. “We condemn all actions that help fund Russia’s illegal war effort and circumvent E.U. sanctions and remain ready to target such actions by listing individuals and entities in third countries if necessary,” a spokesman for the European Commission stated.

A top global wheat exporter, Ukraine has claimed that Russia has stolen at least 15 million tons of Ukrainian grain since the start of the war in 2022. Israeli-Ukrainian relations have been strained over the last four years, as Jerusalem has sought to maintain ties with both Kyiv and Moscow amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.