The current Ukrainian minister and former head of the Agrarian Committee was caught in the act of seizing state land worth UAH 291 million and attempting to seize land worth another UAH 190 million. This was reported by the NABU.
The Bureau does not name the minister, but the facts from his biography suggest that it is the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solskyy. According to the investigation, the criminal group headed by the top official included officials of the StateGeoCadastre, as well as persons who controlled the activities of these bodies, the so-called curators.
In 2017, when the scheme was launched, Solskyy was not yet a politician, but owned a number of agricultural companies. He later became a Member of Parliament of the IX convocation and headed the Verkhovna Rada's Agrarian Committee, and "in collusion with the head of the StateGeoCadastre of Ukraine and the curators of the StateGeoCadastre bodies, decided to take possession of land used by two state-owned enterprises in Sumy Region," the SAPO added.
Participants in the scheme destroyed documents on the basis of which two state-owned enterprises in Sumy Region had the right to permanently use land. Due to their absence, the regional State Geocadastre drew up an act of unauthorised occupation of these plots. In order to prevent the transfer of the land to unauthorised persons, it was included in the list for the lease auction, but no auction was held. Then, thanks to the controlled officials of the regional StateGeoCadastre, the plots were transferred to the ownership of pre-determined citizens under the guise of exercising their right to free land. The condition for obtaining the land was to sign an agreement on its lease to a private agricultural holding before the land was acquired.
"As a result of the fraud, in 2017-2021, the scheme participants seized 1,250 land plots with a total area of 2,493 hectares, the value of which at the time of the crime was over UAH 291 million. They also attempted to seize 3,282 hectares of land worth about UAH 190 million, but were prevented by NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors who conducted searches and seized the plots," the NABU said in a statement.
Currently, the organiser of the scheme, the current Minister, two supervisors of the StateGeoCadastre and a person who facilitated the crime have been served with suspicion notices.
Other participants of the criminal scheme are being served with suspicion notices.
Mykola Solskyy
A native of Lviv Region, he graduated from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Faculty of Law, specialising in Law.
From July 1999 to August 1999, he worked as an interpreter for the Ukrainian-Canadian Joint Venture Emigration Bridge.
From March 2000 to January 2003, he worked as a legal advisor for various companies. From 2003 to 2014, he was the CEO of Solskyy, Protsyk and Partners Law Firm LLC.
Mr Solsky has been a co-founder of Ukrainian Agrarian Holding since 2007. Subsequently, he became the founder of seven and beneficiary of ten agricultural enterprises.
From March 2014 to March 2019, he was Deputy Executive Director of the company. From March to August 2019, he was a lawyer at Protsyk and Partners.
On 21 July 2019, he was elected as a Member of Parliament of Ukraine.
On 29 August 2019, he was elected Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the IX convocation.
On 24 March 2022, he was appointed Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.