The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine has launched an investigation into the Minister of Agrarian Policy Vitaliy Koval following media reports that he lives in a UAH 17.7 million apartment registered to his pensioner mother-in-law. This was reported by Slidstvo.info, UNN and.
Details
On September 23, journalistspublished an investigation claiming that the Minister of Agrarian Policy Vitaliy Koval lives in a 170-square-meter apartment in an elite residential complex. According to the investigators, the apartment belongs to his mother-in-law, a 69-year-old pensioner who probably had no official income to buy it. The estimated cost of the apartment is UAH 17.7 million.
The NABU reported that it is “taking measures to identify unjustified assets and collect evidence of their unjustification.
However, it is not clear why the NABU is dealing with this issue, and not the National Agency for the Prevention of corruption (NAPC).
Vitaliy Koval was appointed as Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food on September 5, 2024. Previously, he headed the Rivne Regional Administration for four years, and then the State Property Fund for almost a year. However, NABU became interested in him only after his appointment as Minister of Agrarian Policy.
Prior to Koval's appointment, Taras Vysotskyi was acting Minister of Agricultural Policy, and before that, Mykola Solskyi held the position.
It is noteworthy that both of them are also involved in criminal proceedings investigated by the NABU.
Vysotskyi is suspected of involvement in abuses in two pasta procurements at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. And Solsky is suspected of organizing the seizure of land of the National Agrarian Academy in Sumy region to transfer it to the ATO military, but back in 2017, long before he became minister.
Both of these cases look rather dubious if we analyze the evidence base. Thus, the NABU in August suspended the investigation of criminal proceedings against Vysotsky altogether.
Detectives continue to investigate the case against the village, although it has been going on for more than 5 years - since 2019.
According to the NABU, the land that Solsky, as a lawyer, helped the ATO participants obtain was allegedly used by state-owned enterprises of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences (Iskra and Nadiya), and therefore could not be transferred to the ATO participants. In their arguments, although detectives and prosecutors refer to a copy of the State Act issued to the Stalin Artel, where “Stalin Artel” is crossed out and “Iskra” is added with a ballpoint pen, they themselves are skeptical of such evidence .
The original of this document has not been seen at all in any state body - neither in the NAAS, nor in the Institute of Agriculture of the North-East, nor in the StateGeoCadastre, nor in the Romny State District Administration of Sumy region (where the disputed lands are located).
Moreover, the Supreme Court and forensic examinations have already refuted the anti-corruptionists' version that these lands have little to do with the NAAS.
At the same time, detectives tried to conceal and cancel the examination ordered by the NABU in this case. There is a possibility that it could have testified to Solsky's innocence.
Why NABU detectives decided to announce suspicion to the then Acting Minister of Agricultural Policy Mykola Solsky only in May of this year, in fact 5 years after the start of the investigation, is not known for certain, but experts see signs of political persecutionin this case .
Recently, there have been frequent statements about the loss of independence of anti-corruption bodies in Ukraine. This has been stated, among other things, by the recently dismissed First Deputy Director of the Bureau , Gizo Uglava. He has repeatedly hinted that decisions at the NABU are made under the influence of external factors, not on the basis of the law.
The same opinion is supported by lawyerswho also stated that the real goal of anti-corruption activists has turned from fighting corruption to putting pressure on certain public officials to achieve “external” goals.
It is possible that in the case of the “prosecution” of agricultural ministers, NABU may actually be following the instructions of international partners who are actually funding a separate power bloc in Ukraine. Why would Western partners want this? There are several possible explanations for this:
- Grain corridor. By prosecuting former agriculture ministers, new ministers can be pressured to make decisions on grain exports, quotas, or cooperation with the right foreign companies.
- Opening the land market. International companies may have their own interests in privatizing land plots in Ukraine, and thus the Minister of Agrarian Policy is needed to influence the “necessary decisions.
- Competition for ministerial candidates from international partners. Currently, appointments are mostly controlled by the Ukrainian authorities, but international partners have begun to compete with them for high positions.
That is, although the prosecution of ministers may look like an attempt to fight corruption, in reality it may be an internal struggle for influence, geopolitical and economic interests of international organizations.
Until now, for example, it is not clear why the Rural Business intensified simultaneously with negotiations with the poles. And why, on the eve of reaching a solution to the situation with the poles, the NABU declares suspicion and the poles withdraw from the negotiations for formal reasons, leaving the situation "suspended" until now. Some market players are inclined to believe that NABU detectives deliberately played along with the poles.
By the way, in December, the reasonable timeframe for the investigation of Solsky will expire, and there is still no convincing evidence of guilt .