A government institution, the cradle of agricultural science or a personal business project of Yaroslav Gadzalo and those close to him? The National Academy of Agrarian Sciences is one of the largest landowners in Ukraine: it has about 600 thousand hectares of fertile fields. In terms of area, it is like the entire Chernivtsi region. However, the activities of NAAN have been extremely unprofitable for many years now. And control checks revealed countless cases of misuse of sites.
What exactly are academician Yaroslav Gadzalo and the structure under his control suspected of? And what does this have to do with the high-profile case of bribing people's deputy Gunko? New details of the high-profile investigation are in the material of journalist Diana Lovskaya.
Recently, the media space was disrupted by information about the searches that were carried out at the President of NAAN Yaroslav Gadzalo. Therefore, the team decided to recall all the criminal cases of the latifundist and his entourage.
The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences has long been accused of turning from a scientific institution into a commercial one.
After all, it is this organization, headed by Yaroslav Gadzalo, that owns the largest amount of the best Ukrainian lands, most of which have the status of especially valuable ones. In addition, every year NAAS receives round sums from the state budget for scientific activities.
“If you think that some of the government land is not being cultivated, you are very mistaken. All these territories are in good cultivation. The only question is whose, and whether the state benefits from this. The organization of this entire process needs to be put in order. Not everyone wants this. There are a lot of unaccounted for lands that seem to exist somewhere, but they are actually cultivated, something grows there, is harvested, the crops are sold, the money is used somewhere. Believe me, the scale of this is very large,” comments ex-chairman of the State Property Fund of Ukraine Igor Belous.
We are talking, in particular, about the “distribution” of plots of land near Kiev – in Gatny and Chabany. All these lands used to belong to a scientific institute, and now the Atlant developer is working here on all sides, the height of the buildings is at least 25 floors. Moreover, the scientists themselves received plots here, or rather, they registered them in the name of their relatives.
But misuse of land is only the tip of a possible corruption iceberg.
On July 27, 2023, the SBU conducted searches in the house of NAAN President Yaroslav Gadzalo. Photos of the scientist and his luxurious interior quickly went viral. This time, the academician was suspected of stealing 145 hectares of land, from which he allegedly received about 20 million dollars annually.
This is not the first crime story in which Gadzalo appears. In 2019, the police announced suspicion of interfering with the activities of an executive service employee. He forcibly pushed the latter out of the office when he was inspecting the proceedings for the illegal appointment of one of the directors of the NAAN branch.
And at the beginning of 2020, NABU presented the head of NAAN with another suspicion of theft of state land near Kyiv. In December of the same year, Gadzalo was suspected of accepting a bribe: then he allegedly sold a “grain” position at NAAN, for which he received an elite SUV as a gift.
However, all these cases were closed without being brought to their logical conclusion.
This is despite the fact that regulatory authorities have repeatedly expressed doubts about the virtues of the academy. The Accounting Chamber, which conducted an audit in 2020, found that scientists had “lost” at least 31% of the lands under their control, and counted significant unearmarked expenses.
“Ask how much land the National Agrarian Academy of Sciences has. There are thousands of hectares there. There is nothing to talk about at all... By the way, the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences has not transferred a single object to us over the past six years. There are 461 objects in the NAS together with NAAN, the total number of these lands is unknown. If we knew, we could multiply this amount by at least the cost of a ton of grown grain or the cost of land: corporate rights (from 100 to 500 dollars per 1 hectare) and plus rent. Then we would understand how much the state is losing,” notes Igor Bilous.
What is known about the condition of Yaroslav Gadzalo himself?
According to the electronic declaration, Mr. Gadzalo lives quite modestly. He owns only an old apartment in a residential area of the capital and several acres of land in the Lviv region. However, his unemployed wife turned out to be incredibly wealthy.
As journalists found out, Galina Gadzalo owns a large part of the unprofitable and inconspicuous company Ukragroimpex, which owns only one piece of real estate and one plot of land. Co-owner of the company is Bogdan Grebenok. Another Grebenko company, Nauchnaya, is registered at the same address.
And it is to this structure that property worth billions of hryvnias is registered, and these are 8 cars, including a 2022 Land Rover Defender (price is about 100 thousand dollars), a 2022 Mercedec-Benz V 300 D (price is about 120 thousand . dollars) ). The company also owns five houses and 3,421 plots of land. Annual revenue – we are talking only about official figures, according to Youcontrol – reaches 117.5 million UAH.
To confirm or refute this information, StopCor representatives called and wrote to Yaroslav Gadzalo, but all attempts to contact him were in vain. And journalists are not allowed into the National Academy at all.
Since 3,421 land plots were owned by the company from Gadzal’s orbit, law enforcement officials will have to find out.
After all, corruption cases around NAAN are no secret to the competent authorities. At one time, people's deputies even created a Temporary Commission of Inquiry to investigate these facts. However, not a single report was provided for almost two years.
People's Deputy from the Servant of the People Anatoly Gunko was appointed head of the commission. By the way, it was his name that our insiders, who are employees of the National Academy, remembered. According to the latest information, he oversaw a dozen branches of NAAN in the regions and dealt with state land at his own discretion.
