Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky has been released from custody on bail pending what Reuters have reported as “a corruption investigation into allegations he took part in an illegal acquisition of state-owned land worth some $7 million.”
Solsky has denied the allegations.
Reuters report that the Minister was ordered into custody on Friday, but later told Reuters that bail of 75.7 million hryvnias ($1.9 million) “had been paid.”
Rubina Freiberg writing for Agriland has also reported that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) of Ukraine accused Minister Solskyi, who it said is the “owner of a number of agricultural companies”, of being involved in a “scheme” to seize state land.
Freiberg writes that between 2017 and 2021, 1,250 land plots have been seized under the “scheme”, totalling 2,493ha. According to the NABU, the minister is among “13 suspects”.
Ukraine has long been bedevilled by accusations of rampant corruption.
Last week The Financial Times reported allegations by one of the largest Western investors in Ukraine, Anglo-German businessman Arnulf Damerau.
The FT reported that Mr Damerau has claimed that “employees of President Vladimir Zelensky’s office and the Security Service are extorting tens of millions of euros from him.”
Damerau told the Financial Times that “officials and law enforcement agencies are trying to extort tens of millions of euros from him for stopping fabricated court cases against his business in the country.”
The FT also reported Mr Damerau’s claims that last October, the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine accused Cosmolot, a large online gaming and gambling website and the country’s 10th-largest taxpayer, half-owned by Damerau, of violating gambling laws and evading 560 million euros in taxes.
“The businessman claimed he was approached by a Ukrainian man in December 2023 with an offer to close the case and unfreeze the company’s accounts if he agreed to hand over control of half the company to an offshore trust.”
In Jaunary the BBC claimed that Ukraine’s security service (The SBU) had uncovered corruption in an arms purchase by the military worth about $40m (£31m).
According to the BBC, The SBU said five senior people in the defence ministry and at an arms supplier were being investigated. It said the defence officials signed a contract for 100,000 mortar shells in August 2022 and “while payment was made in advance, with some funds transferred abroad, but no arms were ever provided.”
It noted that corruption “has been a major stumbling block in Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union.”