O Ukrainian parliament “received a letter of resignation from Mykola Solsky”, declared on the social network Facebook the president of that body, Ruslan Stefantchuk, attaching the handwritten missive to his message.
“I ask you to accept my resignation from the position of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food”, reads the letter — a request that deputies must now accept or reject.
Several cases of corruption have emerged in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion of the country in February 2022, particularly within the Armed Forces, but they generally involve low-ranking officers.
Mykola Solsky confirmed that he had written the resignation letter, considering it to be the “right thing to do”, in a message released by his ministry.
He also assured that he was willing to “continue working” if parliament refused to resign.
On Tuesday, the national anti-corruption agency announced that Solsky was suspected of having seized public land with an “approximate value of 6.9 million euros” and of having “attempted to appropriate other land” valued at almost 4.5 million euros.
To this end, according to the authorities, he acted in concert with officials from the State’s property registration and cartography service.
Between 2017 and 2021, they are suspected of having seized almost 2,500 hectares in the Sumy region, in northeastern Ukraine, through a system that involved the diversion of official documents.
According to his official biography, Mykola Solsky worked at a law firm until 2019, was elected deputy of parliament that year and appointed minister in March 2022.
The accused also tried to appropriate another 3,282 hectares of land, but were “prevented” from doing so by prosecutors and anti-corruption agents, the national anti-corruption agency said.
The Ministry of Agriculture released a response from Mykola Solsky to these accusations, in which he states that between 2017 and 2018 he worked as a lawyer and not in public office.
“I promise maximum transparency to clarify the truth,” he added, according to the ministry’s statement.
The fight against corruption, an endemic evil in Ukraine, is one of the main conditions imposed by the European Union on the country as part of its application to join the European community bloc.
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Tags: Ukraine Minister Agriculture resigns suspicions corruption
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