The state-owned enterprises of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, which initiated the NABU case against former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky and almost 1,500 ATO soldiers, have significantly complicated the investigation for detectives. The reason is that over the years of Ukraine's independence, they have lost almost half of the land and now it is extremely difficult to understand where whose land is, as evidenced by court materials, UNN reports.
According to the representatives of these state-owned enterprises (Iskra and Nadiya), they received the land for permanent use in the 1950s. In particular, Nadiia claims that its land bank was formed as a result of the merger of the lands of the Kalinin artel with the Lenin collective farm. The total bank was supposed to be 5985 hectares. However, there is a nuance. While Kalinin's artel had documents for the perpetual use of the land, Lenin's state farm did not. Therefore, when the artel merged into the state farm, the perpetual use of the artel's land was automatically canceled.
Between 1952 and 2017, the state-owned enterprises Iskra and Nadezhda repeatedly changed their organizational structure and land use.
And, as of 2017, the state-owned enterprise Nadiia had only about 3,620 hectares of land left. One can only guess what happened to the rest of the land, but the fact remains that the land has almost halved.
If the amount of land has changed, then the boundaries of this land have obviously changed significantly. It is known that Nadiia and Iskra do not have documents for land in accordance with the current legislation, and therefore all their land has not been allocated in kind, and they cannot be the legal successors of the land banks of the then collective farms or artels, at least because it has undergone significant quantitative changes.
This was also confirmed by the scientific and legal conclusion of experts . According to the results of the examination, the state acts of the 1950s cannot be considered documents that entitle the state-owned enterprises Iskra and Nadiia Agrofirm to use the land in perpetuity.
By the way, a similar case has already been investigated by the Supreme Court. Among other things, the judges found that the land that used to be in artels and then became part of a collective farm had no legal connection, at least because of the lack of natural boundaries.
"...the legal connection between the land plots granted to the Molotov and Voroshilov artels and the land used by the Rodina collective farm established in 1989 has not been proved, which indicates that the said Rodina collective farm does not have any rights in relation to the land plot that is the subject of the dispute, and therefore the possibility of their violation by the defendants in the case," the court's rulingreads.
By analogy, it can be argued that the land plots that were in the bank of Lenin's state farm and those that ended up in Nadezhda's possession are different plots.
In the case against former Minister Solsky, NABU detectives point out that eight years ago, as a lawyer, he organized a scheme whereby NAAS land was transferred for privatization to ATO soldiers. However, in order to establish the truth, NABU needs to prove that the land in question really belonged to the National Academy of Sciences.
So far, all indications are that these lands have been squatted by the NAAS for many years. Moreover, these squatted lands were leased to commercial entities, which is prohibited. This is evidenced by a number of lawsuits and criminal proceedings.
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The NABU believes that eight years ago, then-lawyer Mykola Solskyi organized a scheme under which almost 1,500 ATO soldiers were able to exercise their right to privatize land. According to the detectives, the ATO soldiers should not have received this land, as it was used by state-owned enterprises of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences. Despite the fact that the NABU has run out of reasonable time for the investigation and is forced to extend it in court, detectives and prosecutors plan to interrogate 1,500 ATO members.
However, the military is obviously afraid to seize the land.