This Friday, the Ukrainian judiciary issued a pre-trial detention order against Agriculture Minister Mikola Solski, who has already resigned, after being accused of corruption.
According to the local press, the Ukrainian Supreme Anti-Corruption Court issued a detention order for at least 60 days, which Solski can avoid if he pays bail of 75.7 million hryvnia (1.78 million euros).
Solski submitted his resignation on Thursday - which must be accepted by the Ukrainian parliament - after being charged this week by the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).
Land grabbing and transfers to private individuals
According to NABU, before becoming minister, Solski was part of a group that illegally appropriated around 2,500 hectares of land belonging to the state, valued at 291 million hryvnia (around seven million euros).
The agency is also investigating the minister for allegedly trying to transfer another set of public lands, valued at 190 million hryvnia (4.5 million euros), to private individuals.
The events took place, according to NABU, between 2017 and 2021. Solski was chairman of the Ukrainian parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Land Policy between 2019 and 2021, before being appointed minister in 2022.
Wave of resignations in the government
After a wave of resignations in the Ukrainian government, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made fighting corruption at the highest level one of the priorities in times of war, in order to modernize the country and meet the requirements for joining the European Union.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian President's Office, was the first to go, after being accused of driving a car intended for transporting citizens on humanitarian missions for personal purposes.
The deputy defense minister, Vyacheslav Shapovalov, also fell because of a scandal involving the purchase of food for the Ukrainian military at inflated prices in an exchange of favors with a company.
Vasyl Lozynsky, now Ukraine's former Deputy Minister of Development and Communities and Territories, was also arrested on suspicion of having received a bribe of 368,000 euros to benefit a company during the purchase of generators.
