Ukraine: Agriculture Minister jailed and facing trial over state land acquisition

This Friday, a Ukrainian court decided to place Agriculture Minister Nikolai Solsky in custody on charges of illegally acquiring state land between 2017 and 2021. The land is valued at €6.5 million and the judge set bail at €1.78 million. If he does not pay it, he will remain in custody until June 24 as part of the preliminary investigation.

Solsky, 44, is the first minister known to President Vladimir Zelensky to be personally suspected of corruption. In March 2022, he was appointed agriculture minister, a position the war has left highly vulnerable: He is at the center of Kyiv’s efforts to maintain the country’s colossal grain production despite occupation or extraction of farmland, and to allow exports despite farming difficulties . Black Sea.

Proclaiming his innocence in the facts laid out by the Anti-Corruption Court, he tendered his resignation on Thursday but will technically remain in office until parliament considers his application. As part of his duties, he left Ukraine several times since the beginning of the war, so the prosecutor’s office asked to detain him. He faces up to 12 years in prison.

Zero tolerance policy for corruption

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Agency announced on Tuesday that Mykola Solsky is suspected of seizing almost 2,500 hectares of state land in the Sumy region (northeast) between 2017 and 2021, worth almost 6.9 million euros, and “attempting to appropriate other lands.” » in the amount of approximately 4.5 million euros through the appropriation of official documents with the help of officials of the State Land Service responsible for cadastre and cartography. The land was allegedly given to war veterans on the condition that they rent it out to private companies.

The defendants also tried to take possession of another 3,282 hectares of land, but the police “prevented” them from doing so, according to the prosecutor’s office, which announced a suspicion against Solsky’s deputy Markiyan Dmitrasevich, who is currently on a working trip outside Ukraine as part of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU as a member agricultural bloc.

According to the official biography, Nikolai Solsky worked at a law firm until 2019. That same year he was elected to parliament and headed the agricultural commission.

Because of Ukraine’s application to join the European Union, President Zelensky initiated a zero-tolerance policy towards corruption. He replaced his defense minister last year following allegations of corruption within the department.