“It all looks wild” - NABU detective Yarema about the key document of anti-corruption activists in the case against ex-Minister Solskyi

Viktor Yarema, a senior detective with the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, is skeptical about the "key document" that his colleagues referred to in their suspicion of former Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky. He stated this in the podcast "Corruption vs NABU," UNN reports.

This refers to a 1953 state act for the lifetime use of land issued to the Stalin artel. Later, this deed was crossed out with a ballpoint pen and instead of "Stalin's artel" it read "Iskra".

It is this document that NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors refer to in court as evidence that the state-owned enterprise Iskra had the right to use the land of the "Stalin's artel" for life, which was privatized by the ATO soldiers instead.

During the podcast, Detective Yarema spoke about the most common land theft schemes. One of them, he said, is a scheme where NAAS enterprises did not properly draw up land documents for years.

The detective's interlocutor noted that this is a very strange situation, because in some cases, such as the Solsky case, these are documents from the "socialist republic".

"The case you mentioned looks really wild, but according to the decision of the CCU, all these ancient documents, if they were duly issued and not canceled, are valid," Yarema said.

However, it is worth noting that in the NABU v. Solskyi case, NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors refer only to a pen-drawn copy of the state act issued in 1963, and not even to Iskra.

The original of this document has not been seen at all in any state body - neither in the National Academy of Sciences, nor in the Institute of Agriculture of the North-East, nor in the State Geocadastre, nor in the Romny State District Administration of the Sumy region (where the disputed lands are located).

It turns out that the investigation is using only a dubious copy of a Soviet document, and one that was drawn with a ballpoint pen.

In an interview with UNN , former acting head of the State Geocadastre Oleksandr Kolotilin called NABU's arguments regarding the ownership of land plots by the state enterprise Iskra on the basis of this State Act issued to the Stalin Artel in 1953 legal nonsense. He noted that in independent Ukraine there was no succession of Soviet artels and collective farms, and the copy of the act itself is questionable, as the name "Stalin's artel" was crossed out and "Iskra" was written instead.

He also emphasizedthat the companies Iskra and Nadiya, to which NABU attributes the disputed land plots, have never issued title documents for the land after Ukraine gained independence, which, in his opinion, indicates an improper approach to land use without official documents.

Context

This refers to a criminal proceeding in which NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors accuse, in particular, former Minister Mykola Solskyi of organizing the seizure of land of the National Agrarian Academy in Sumy region to transfer it to the ATO military. According to the version of the detectives, these lands were allegedly used by state-owned enterprises of the National Agricultural Academy (Iskra and Nadiya), and therefore could not be transferred to the ATO military.

Despite the fact that the proceedings themselves raise more questions than answers - some call it political persecution - the reasonable timeframe for the investigation has long been exhausted, as it concerns the events of 2017, when Solsky was a lawyer.

The Supreme Court and expert examinations ruledthat the NABU's accusations were false, as the land plots in question did not belong to the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences and could therefore be privatized by the ATO military on legal grounds, under the right granted to them by the state.

At the same time, detectives tried to hide and cancel the examination ordered by the NABU in this case. There is a possibility that it could have testified to the innocence of Solsky and the ATO soldiers.

The ATO soldiers themselves are outraged by such actions of the NABU and are ready to prove the legitimacy of their actions.