A Ukrainian court today issued an arrest warrant for Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Solsky on charges of complicity in the illegal acquisition of state land worth about $7 million, Reuters reported.
The agency specifies that he rejects the accusations, which concern the period 2017 – 2021 – before his mandate as the country’s minister of agriculture. Solski takes office in March 2022.
The court set a bail of 75.7 million hryvnias ($1.9 million).
Solsky resigned yesterday, but until the Ukrainian parliament accepts it, he is in office, notes Reuters, pointing out that this is the first minister under Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be known to be suspected of corruption.
The court ruled that the minister will remain in pre-trial detention until June 24. Prosecutors announced at a court hearing yesterday that the charges against him are punishable by up to 12 years in prison. Reuters makes the stipulation that the accused has not been made available for comment at this time.
Solsky, 44, has come under the spotlight amid Ukraine’s efforts to keep up the pace of its grain exports since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022, which blocked Black Sea corridors, strewn farmland with landmines and rural farms – occupied, Reuters recalls.
According to the national anti-corruption agency, the charges relate to a scheme to embezzle state land worth 291 million hryvnias ($3.75 million) and an attempt to acquire land worth 190 million hryvnias ($2.2 million). Under the illegal scheme, the land was taken from two state-owned companies and transferred to two military veterans on the condition that they lease it to private companies, prosecutors said.
Reuters also recalls that President Zelensky strives to follow a line of “zero tolerance” regarding corruption, having last year replaced the Minister of Defense (Olexii Reznikov with Rustem Umerov) due to accusations of corruption.
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