President Volodymyr Zelensky’s highest-ranking government minister named as a suspect in a criminal land grab.

By Graham Barnfield

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Ukraine’s agriculture minister has tendered his resignation amid a corruption investigation. Mykola Solskyi is accused of involvement in illegal land acquisition between 2017 and 2021, prior to becoming a leading figure in the Zelensky government.

Illegally transferring the ownership of state land–with an estimated value of €6.9 million–is punishable by up to 12 years in jail, according to prosecutors at a hearing on Thursday night. Solskyi has announced he would be “grateful” if parliament accepts his resignation before the formal conclusion of the investigation; if not, he will continue to serve.

Not long after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine announced that an unnamed minister was under official suspicion, the identity of the accused became publicly known.

It is alleged that in his earlier role as a lawyer, Solskyi directed accomplices to destroy the public ownership deeds of farmland in the northeastern Sumy region, before transferring the rights to his own affiliates. Additional charges relate to further, incomplete attempts to acquire more land through the same process.

Distancing these activities from his current government position, the minister has promised to cooperate with authorities:

I guarantee maximum openness to establish the truth, but there is no need for this—all data is open to law enforcement, and the evidence and arguments of the parties are being considered by the courts.

Solskyi was elected to the Ukrainian parliament in 2019. As a minister appointed in March 2022 shortly after the Russian invasion, his brief involves steering national agribusiness through the crisis (prompting conflict with border-blockading Polish farmers). One of the wealthiest Ukrainian officials, Solskyi is reported to have been losing the confidence of Zelensky in recent weeks.

Original article: The European Conservative