Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Solsky, together with the head of the State Food and Consumer Service Sergei Tkachuk and his deputy Vadim Chaikovsky, created a criminal group that earns millions of dollars every month on the “grain corridor”.
While some are giving their lives and health for the state... Minister of Agrarian Policy Mykola Solsky is suspected of seizing state land worth UAH 291 million and attempting to seize territory worth another UAH 190 million - NABU.
“There are no complaints about our products on the world market. I have not seen such threats. We did not receive mass notifications...”, says the head of the State Food and Consumer Service Sergei Tkachuk. But facts are stubborn things. Ukraine continues to receive more and more complaints (notifications) about the quality of exported grain. Why then does the State Food Service specifically hide the real threat of losing markets for our grain products? Perhaps because the establishment of legal and transparent work will eliminate multimillion-dollar extortion schemes from exporters?
Falsification of phytosanitary certificates, delays in issuance and falsification of laboratory test results are a corruption component in the activities of the State Border Guard Service, which does not disappear, even despite regular revelations by law enforcement agencies and the detention of those involved.
The Solsky-Tkachuk-Loif-Potokin criminal group continues to use the phytosanitary laboratories of the State GPS Service as a tool to force exporters to pay $2 for each ton of grain exported from Ukraine (Reference: according to the Ministry of Agriculture, exports of grains and legumes in April alone amount to 4,500,000 tons )
According to rumors, the coordinator of the process of extorting funds from exporters is the former director of the phytosanitary department, Vitaly Romanenko. He negotiates with exporters for cooperation, and in case of refusal, he guarantees the identification of pests in grain products based on the results of laboratory tests.
The guarantors of the issuance of the “necessary” results of Romanenko are the heads of Odessa (Ekaterina Abuselidze), Nikolaev (Alexander Pastukh) and Kyiv central (Oleg Melnik) phytolaboratories. The latter has a special mission - to refute preliminary positive test results, provided that the exporter has agreed to “cooperate”. The table shows evidence of the disappearance of “pests” during repeated analysis of grain in the Kyiv Central Phytolab.
Along with Romanenko, an equally important role in the process of enrichment for grain exports is played by the current director of the Department of Phytosanitary Safety of the State Border Guard Service, Andrei Chelombitko, who is associated in the media with multimillion-dollar corruption schemes and poaching. Chelombitko, in collaboration with the head of the State Border Guard Service in the Odessa region, Vladimir Kusturov, the head of the phytosafety department, Evgeniy Zheleznyak, and his deputy, Irina Bereza, force their subordinates to issue phytosanitary certificates for grain, despite the fact that its quality does not meet the stated requirements of the importing country.
One example of this is the departure of the vessel ARGEUS with a cargo of 62,213 thousand tons of barley infected with the pest Aegilops cylindrica, which, according to paragraph 405 of the “Catalogue of Quarantine Pests for Import Plants to China,” is prohibited for import into China. The conclusions of the examination are further in the text.
Export of grain crops is a strategically important component of the Ukrainian economy. The loss of markets for agricultural products will only worsen the already difficult economic situation of our state. But the leadership of the State Food and Consumer Service is more interested in personal profit than the future of Ukraine. Who else should NABU, DBI and other law enforcement agencies detain so that officials stop profiting from the “grain corridor”?
