Last month, amid an ever-growing list of economic sanctions, Russia managed to supply a record level of grain to the global market, according to new data from the Russian Grain Union. (RGU).

In July, Russia exported 5.68 million tons of grain crops, to include a record 4.54 million tons of wheat. It marked an increase of 60% over the same month last year.

Russia’s top three purchasers of wheat were Saudi Arabia (578,000 tons), Türkiye (518,000 tons), and Egypt (467,000 tons). In addition, significant sales were made to Israel (345,000 tons), Bangladesh (222,000 tons), Tanzania (94,000 tons), and Sudan (68,000 tons).

The director of analytics at the RGU, Elena Tyurina, said in an interview with RIA Novosti, “Latin American countries became new buyers of Russian wheat. For example, 62,000 tons were shipped to Brazil, and 49,000 to Peru. Last year, in July, Brazil and Peru did not buy our wheat.”

33 countries were supplied with Russian wheat last month, which was a 27% increase over the 26 nations which were supplied in July of 2022.

In 2022, Russia supplied one out of five export batches of wheat in the world, which allowed Moscow to retain its classification as a net exporter of agricultural goods. Last year Russia enjoyed a record harvest of over 150 million tons of grain, of which more than 100 million tons were made up of wheat.