the Minister of Agriculture was in the spotlight

Russia in 2022 Since the February invasion, several corruption cases have been brought to light in Ukraine, but they generally involve lower-level officials and military procurement. Ukraine, which is seeking membership in the European Union, has promised to strengthen the fight against corruption.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) said on Tuesday that it had “discovered” that the current minister had acquired “291 million state land worth hryvnias (7.3 million US dollars) and tried to seize another 190 million hryvnias. land worth hryvnias”. The agency did not announce the name of this person, but it is clear from the report that it is the Minister of Agriculture Mykola Solskis.

NABU suspects Solski of leading a group that expropriated farmland in the northeastern Sumy region between 2017 and 2021, before he became minister, by destroying documents showing that two state-owned companies had the right to use the land. The group then arranged for the state agency to transfer the rights to its affiliates under the guise of a government agricultural land use scheme, NABU said.

M. Solskis, who owned a number of farming companies, in 2019 was elected to the Ukrainian parliament in 2022. was appointed Minister of Agriculture in March. In a statement on Tuesday, he said the case involved a “dispute” and that the land had been transferred “according to law”. He promised “the utmost openness” in the investigation and said he believed courts, including the Supreme Court, had already ruled that the companies from which the land was allegedly taken had no legal right to it.

NABU earlier said its agents had foiled a “criminal group” that tried to repeat the trick with another 3,300 hectares and nearly $5 million. a plot of land worth dollars.

The minister and his alleged accomplices have been served with official notices of allegations, Ukraine’s special anti-corruption prosecutor announced on Tuesday.

Ukraine, which is seeking to join the EU and has been rocked by corruption scandals since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has promised to strengthen efforts to combat bribery. Last year, due to numerous corruption scandals in the military, President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the country’s defense minister.