Theft of land from the Academy of Agrarian Sciences. Who got the plots and who was investigated?

Particularly valuable lands became the property of members of the NAAN Presidium, their relatives, employees of the SBU, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy...

Almost 140 especially valuable land plots near Kiev illegally became the private property of a number of officials of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine (NAAS), the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Agrarian Policy.

This is what NABU and SAPO claim as part of an investigation into events that occurred more than 10 years ago. However, we paid attention to this matter not even because of its scale, but for another reason.

It is interesting that even before the start of the trial, five top NAAN officials were excluded from the list of defendants in the case. And it was they, according to the initial version of the investigation, who made illegal decisions, and thanks to them this crime became possible in the first place.

Why did this happen and how did the deal work?

How did the scheme work?

During the investigation, NABU detectives found out that NAAN officials, outside their powers, terminated the right to permanent use of the Shepherds research farm (an organization within the NAAN structure) for 144 land plots in Gatny, near Kiev, of which 138 land plots have already been transferred to private property and six more were in the process of re-registration at the time the investigation began. We are talking about more than 15 hectares of “especially valuable” land intended for research. These lands eventually became the private property of members of the Presidium of NAAN, their close relatives, employees of the Security Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and other persons.

The plots involved in the case were part of 330 hectares of land, which back in 2003 were transferred for permanent use to the Shepherds research farm of the Institute of Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences. The chairman of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district state administration carried out such a transfer by his order with the corresponding purpose.

It is important here that, according to the then norms of the Land Code of Ukraine, it was possible to terminate the right of permanent use only with the consent of the Verkhovna Rada. The same applies to changing the intended purpose. But NAAN, according to investigators, was able to make such a decision without the consent of parliament. And the formal reason was that in September 2013, workers of the Chabany experimental farm asked to be allocated such land plots for vegetable gardening.

As part of the criminal plan, NAAN received a letter from the chairman of the SBU, but without his signature, about the need to terminate the right to permanent use of these land plots by the experimental farm “Chabany” in order to transfer these lands to the Security Service. Then there was a second letter with similar content, but signed by the deputy chairman of the SBU. However, there is actually no significant difference between both letters: in any case, such appeals were contrary to the law, because only the Cabinet of Ministers can initiate such decisions.

The now accused director of the experimental farm did not object to the allocation of land plots to workers. The other accused, the director of the Institute of Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences, also did not object.

After this, the SBU letter, along with other materials, was submitted to the Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences for consideration, but they “forgot” to add a certificate about the special value of these lands. As a result, as a result of voting, NAAN adopted a corresponding resolution in which it agreed to withdraw 15.12 hectares of land from the use of the “Chabany” experimental farm. After this, the director of the farm sent a letter about the termination of the right of permanent use to the State Land Agency in the Kyiv region. On its basis, the State Land Agency, by separate orders, allocated plots to predetermined people, including relatives of employees of the Academy Presidium, who made the decision to confiscate this land.

In total, as many as 138 people became the new “owners” of these lands, and all of them can be divided into four large groups:

• officials of NAAN, the Institute of Agriculture and related persons. For example, the still-current president of NAAN Yaroslav Gadzalo, his daughter and her husband, the then director of the State Enterprise “DG “Shepherds” Alexander Ishchuk, his wife, the grandmother of his son’s wife, matchmaker of the director of the Institute of Agriculture Viktor Kaminsky, vice-president of NAAN Anatoly Zarishnyak and his wife is a judge of the Kyiv Court of Appeal, as well as their daughter;
• Main Directorate for Counterintelligence Protection of State Interests in the Sphere of Economic Security of the SBU. For example, the leadership of this department, their relatives and generally persons who had no relation to either the Academy or the SBU, but, having received land plots, issued powers of attorney for their disposal to close relatives of the then leadership of this department of the Security Service;
• high-ranking officials, in particular persons associated with the then Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, with the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, etc.;
• local officials, including officials of the Chabanovsky village council, persons associated with the prosecutor of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district, persons associated with the chairman of the Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district state administration Yuri Bondar, their relatives and the like.

NABU estimated that the employees caused more than UAH 42 million in losses to the state through their actions.

How the leadership of NAAN disappeared from the list of defendants in the case

In January 2020, five top Academy officials were additionally informed of the suspicion.

Namely:

• President of NAAN (vice-president at the time of the crime) Yaroslav Gadzal;
• Director of the Institute of Horticulture of the National Academy of Sciences (at the time of the crime - first vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences) Igor Grinik;
• the first vice-rector of the National University of Bioresources and Environmental Management of Ukraine (at the time of the crime - vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences) Igor Ibatullin;
• Vice-President, Chief Scientific Secretary of NAAS (at the time of the crime - Academician-Secretary of the NAAS branch) Anatoly Zarishnyak;
• Director of the National Scientific Center “Institute of Viticulture and Winemaking” named after. V.E. Tairova NAAN to Vyacheslav Vlasov.

According to the investigation, these five people, as members of the NAAN Presidium, voted for the allocation of particularly valuable land plots, and then re-registered them for themselves and close relatives.

However, in May 2020, the head of the SAP closed the proceedings against the “top of NAAN” because there was not enough evidence to prove the selfish motives of those involved during the voting.

In April 2021, Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova canceled this resolution of the head of the SAPO, because, in her opinion, the SAPO did not do everything possible to verify the involvement of the NAAN leadership in this scheme. But in May 2022, the SAPO prosecutor closed the proceedings against the “tops” of NAAN again.

Weren't these people artificially removed from the case? The Code of Criminal Procedure does oblige the closure of proceedings if there is insufficient evidence to prove guilt and there is no way to obtain it.

When NABU announced new suspicions, the Bureau was confident that the leadership of NAAN had re-registered the land plots to themselves and close relatives. But then the investigation, for unknown reasons, abandoned the idea that the “top” of NAAN acted for selfish reasons. At the same time, the opinion of law enforcement officers has not changed regarding the remaining defendants, who were previously charged with the same actions. And this case has been heard at VAKS for a long time.

The list of current participants includes:

• Roman Kucher – ex-head of the state land cadastre department of the main department of the State Land Agency in the Kyiv region;
• Stanislav Gubin – ex-deputy head of the main department of the State Land Agency in the Kyiv region;
• Ivan Shevchenko – ex-head of department of the NSC Institute of Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences;
• Alexander Ishchuk – ex-director of the state enterprise “OH Shepherds”;
• Victor Kaminsky – Director of the NSC Institute of Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences;
• Anush Balyan – vice-president of NAAN;
• Svetlana Kovtun – ex-chief scientific secretary of NAAS;
• Vitaly Oborsky – SBU officer;
• Vasily Petrichenko is the ex-president of NAAN.

All these people are charged with misappropriation, embezzlement of property or taking possession of it through abuse of official position, and additionally with an unfinished attempt to commit such actions. The court can impose a maximum sentence of imprisonment of up to 15 years on the defendants with confiscation of property. But the question arises: what is the difference between the actions of these individuals and the five from the top leadership of the Academy?

When will the ending be?

In December 2019, SAP sent the indictment to the court. Since then, court hearings have been held in the Anticorruption Court to consider this case - now the defense side is speaking in court debates.

In the future, the accused will be able to exercise the right to have the last word. Considering that there are many of them, the process will continue for some time. At the same time, all the evidence has already been examined, so most of the procedural procedures are over.

The land in Gatny is now under arrest, imposed back in November 2017 by the Solomensky District Court of Kyiv. In April 2018, the Kiev Court of Appeal left this decision unchanged. If the defendants are found guilty by the court, the land plots as the subject of the crime may be subject to special confiscation.

Transparency International Ukraine continues to monitor this case, because, as we see, it is not long to wait for a verdict in this case, and many questions remain. And most importantly, will all the culprits of this land deal really be punished? After all, in the end, it is precisely such answers that should form the basis of truly high-quality justice.