Minister Solskyi on recent charges: Events date back to 2017-2018, when I acted as a lawyer

Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solskyi, who has recently been served with charges from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), claims that the events in question date back to the period, when he acted not as a government official but a lawyer.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Minister Mykola Solskyi on Telegram, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

“The events in relation to which, according to the NABU, I have been served with charges, and information about which is being spread in the mass media, date back to 2017-2018, i.e. the period in which I was neither the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine nor the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy, but a lawyer,” Solskyi wrote.

In his words, the case is related to a seven-year-old dispute between state-owned enterprises and individuals, namely the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) servicemen, over the land plots transferred into the ownership of the latter according to the law.

“Disputes are being resolved by courts, including the Supreme Court, and as far as I know, to date, a number of decisions state that the state-owned enterprises do not have the right to the land plots, which are probably meant by the NABU,” Solskyi explained, noting that he would ensure maximum openness to establish the truth.

“But, there is no need for this either: all the data are open to law enforcement officers, and the evidence and arguments of the parties are under consideration by the courts,” Solskyi added.

A reminder that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) stated earlier that Ukraine’s former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee and current minister had been served with charges regarding the expropriation of the state-owned land plots worth UAH 291 million and the attempted expropriation of the land plots worth another UAH 190 million.