This Friday, the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine ordered the arrest of the Minister of Agriculture. Mikola Solski is suspected of having participated in an alleged illegal acquisition of 2,500 hectares of state agricultural fields valued at 6.8 million euros. Solski, who resigned on Thursday, is the first government minister to be formally investigated during the war for alleged criminal acts. The case comes at a time when citizen distrust is growing with the Ukrainian political leadership, also with the president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The events of which Solski is accused date back to 2017 and 2018, when the still minister was a lawyer and shareholder in a consortium of companies that acquired agricultural land from war veterans in Donbas. Ukrainian law states that army veterans can receive state-owned farmland free of charge to establish their agricultural businesses. The anti-corruption court is investigating Solski and others involved for a possible fraudulent transfer of the 2,500 hectares to their companies.
Solski disclaims any illegal action and emphasizes that he was a lawyer legitimately representing the interests of these companies and the veterans. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) already opened an investigation in 2019 into the matter, when Solski was the chairman of the Parliament’s Agrarian Affairs Committee, elected by Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People. NABU has reported that the same group of people, including Solski, tried to acquire another 3,300 public hectares valued at 4.4 million euros in 2021. Despite suspicions, Zelensky approved his appointment as minister in March 2022. The defendant will not go to prison, but must wear an electronic bracelet that transmits his location, in addition to being left without a passport.
The Ukrainian Government has been marred by numerous signs of corruption during the more than two years of the Russian invasion, but this is the first time that justice has named a minister. The most similar precedent occurred in 2023, when an investigation was opened in the Ministry of Defense for the acquisition of military material at a much higher price than the market price. The then head of Defense, Oleksii Reznikov, was dismissed but without having any judicial case against him. Other senior ministry officials were prosecuted.
Information periodically comes to light about representatives of the public administration accused of fraudulently enriching themselves. An example this week, on April 24, was the statement issued by the Dnipro province prosecutor’s office announcing an investigation into a prominent police officer for allegedly acquiring assets valued at 330,000 euros in 2022 with black money.
There are two explanations for this barrage of negative news, according to political analysts consulted by Morning Express in the last year: on the one hand, Ukraine’s commitments to the European Union to become a member state are taking effect and the authorities are taking into account serious about reforming the system; On the other hand, the level of corruption in the country remains very high. Polls indicate that the popularity of the political leadership is at rock bottom. “Trust in politicians has practically fallen to zero,” Oleksii Garan, professor of political science at Kyiv-Mohyla University, said on April 10.
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Garan spoke these words during the presentation of the Razumkov Center’s latest demographic study on citizens’ vision of the country. Garan indicated that corruption in the first place and the bad situation at the front for Ukraine are the main reasons for social unrest. All political institutions were harmed in the survey, including Zelensky: 26% of those interviewed said they trusted the figure of the president. The same question half a year earlier indicated 56% confidence in him. Daria, a 28-year-old young man from Zaporizhzhia, explained to this newspaper on April 24 a general feeling among the population: he does not want to be enlisted in the army and was hiding behind corruption, in his feeling that while many are sent to die, others “in the Government are making a lot of money.”
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