The Minister of Agriculture of Ukraine Mykola Solsky, accused of participating in a large-scale corruption scandal, has paid bail of nearly 2 million dollars and returned to his duties, his ministry announced, reported AFP.
Plagued by heavy corruption since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kyiv has pledged to step up its anti-corruption efforts as part of its bid for European Union membership.
Minister Nikola Solski was taken into custody after being officially named a suspect in a multi-million dollar corruption investigation.
"Nikola Solski has been released from custody and continues to fulfil his duties," his ministry announced on social networks.
The 44-year-old Solski is accused of illegally seizing land worth more than $7 million when he was the head of a large agricultural company and a member of parliament.
The anti-corruption court in the capital Kyiv ordered that he be held in custody until June 24, and bail was set at 75.7 million hryvnias ($1.9 million).
Solski offered his resignation earlier this week and promised to cooperate with the investigation. The speaker of the Ukrainian parliament said that the deputies will consider the resignation request at one of their next meetings.
Prosecutors said they have also charged a dozen other people suspected in the case, including government officials.
Solsky, who owned several agricultural enterprises, was elected as a member of the Ukrainian parliament in 2019 and was appointed Minister of Agriculture in March 2022.
Since the February 2022 invasion of Russia, several cases of high-level corruption have emerged in Ukraine, although these have generally involved lower-level officials and are related to military procurement.
Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky fired the country's defence minister over a series of public procurement scandals in the army.
Separately, the prosecutors announced that they had suspended the deputy head of the regional council in the front-line Zaporizhzhia region from his position for one month.
The official was found to be involved in a bribery scandal worth at least 650,000 hryvnias ($16,000). Prosecutors said their pre-trial investigation is continuing. /BGNES
