The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office announced, this Friday, April 26, the placement in pre-trial detention of Mykola Solsky, the current Minister of Agriculture accused of having appropriated land belonging to the state before joining the government.
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This is the first time that a serving minister has been detained in Ukraineaccording to anti-corruption activists in the country.
The Anti-Corruption Court ordered Thursday to place Minister Mykola Solsky in pre-trial detention until at least June 24, the prosecutor’s office specializing in corruption cases announced in a press release.
Mykola Solsky presented her resignation which must still be validated by Parliament. He can be released if he pays bail of 76 million hryvnias (1.8 million euros), according to the court’s decision, the prosecutor’s office said.
Public lands worth almost 6.9 millions of euros »
Ukraine’s national anti-corruption agency said on Tuesday that Mykola Solsky was suspected of seizing public land. worth almost 6.9 millions of euros » and to have “ tried to appropriate other lands » worth nearly 4.5 million euros.
To this end, say the authorities, he acted in concert with officials from the state service responsible for cadastre and cartography. They are suspected of having appropriated between 2017 and 2021 nearly 2,500 hectares in the Sumy region, in the northeast of the country, through a system that involved the misappropriation of official documents.
The defendants also sought to appropriate another 3,282 hectares of land but the police stopped them. prevented ”, according to the accusation.
Mykola Solsky worked for a law firm until 2019, according to her official biography. He was elected to Parliament that year before being appointed as a minister in March 2022.
Other corruption scandals
This is not the first time that a corruption scandal has shaken Ukrainian political life. In September 2023, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky announced the replacement of his Defense Minister Oleksiï Reznikov by Roustem Oumerov.
Suspicions of corruption then hung over Oleksiï Reznikov regarding a contract relating to army supplies signed with a Turkish company.
Read alsoUkraine: a major government reshuffle looms
Corruption cases regularly emerge in Ukraine. They generally involve managers with less senior functions.
The fight against corruption, an endemic evil in Ukraine, is one of the major conditions set by the Twenty-Seven in kyiv as part of its application for membership of the European Union.
Read also ‘Before the war’, corruption in Ukraine was a ‘systemic problem’