The Ukrainian minister was the head of a criminal group that cheated with land

“The incumbent minister was found to have seized state land worth a total of 291 million hryvnias (174 million CZK) and attempted to acquire land worth another 190 million hryvnias,” the NABU anti-corruption office said on its Facebook page.

The name of the suspect was not published, but Ukrainska Pravda deduced that he is acting Minister for Agricultural Policy and Food Industry Mykola Solsky. Sources confirmed this to the paper.

A former entrepreneur in agriculture, Solskyj held the position of head of the agrarian committee of the parliament until March 2022, then became the minister for agricultural policy and food industry.

Gang trick

He did not seize the land himself, he was supposed to be at the head of a criminal group, which also included employees of the Ukrainian real estate cadastre and so-called curators who supervised their activities. They are suspected of having destroyed the documents on the basis of which two state-owned enterprises in the Sumy region in the north of Ukraine had the right to permanently use land. These were subsequently transferred to the ownership of predetermined people under the pretext of exercising their right to free land.

At the same time, the condition of acquiring ownership of the land was the signing of a contract for its lease to a private agricultural enterprise even before taking over.

Between 2017 and 2021, the group took possession of 1,250 plots of land with a total area of almost 2,493 hectares, which at the time had a value of over 291 million hryvnias. According to the anti-corruption agency, the transfer of another 3,282 hectares was prevented.

“The organizer of the scheme, the acting minister, two supervisors of the State Land Registry and the person who facilitated the crime were served with a Suspicion Notice,” NABU said. The number of those prosecuted will probably not be final.

Solskyj and the Ministry of Agriculture refused to comment on the case when asked by Reuters. If the information is confirmed, Solsky would be the first known minister under President Volodymyr Zelensky to be named by law enforcement authorities as a suspect in a corruption case, Reuters recalled.