Ukraine agriculture minister released from custody in suspected corruption case

Blighted by severe corruption since the fall of the Soviet Union, Kyiv has pledged to bolster its anti-graft efforts as part of its bid for European Union membership.

The minister, Mykola Solsky, was remanded in custody earlier on Friday after being formally named a suspect in a multimillion-dollar corruption probe.

"Mykola Solsky has been released from custody and continues to perform his duties," his ministry announced on social media.

Solsky, 44, has been accused of illegally seizing land worth more than $7 million when he was the head of a major farming company and a member of parliament.

An anti-corruption court in the capital Kyiv had ordered him to be held in custody until June 24 and bail was set at 75.7 million hryvnias ($1.9 million).

Earlier this week, Solsky offered his resignation and promised to cooperate with the probe. The chairman of Ukraine's parliament said lawmakers would consider the resignation request at one of their next sessions.

Prosecutors said Friday they had also charged a dozen other people suspected in the case, including civil servants.

Solsky, who owned a number of farming businesses, was elected to Ukraine's parliament in 2019 and was appointed agriculture minister in March 2022.

Several cases of high-profile corruption have emerged in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, although they have typically involved lower-level officials and been related to army procurement.

President Volodymyr Zelensky last year sacked the country's defence minister over a series of procurement scandals in the army.

Separately, prosecutors said Friday they had suspended for one month the deputy head of the regional council in the frontline Zaporizhzhia region.

The official was found to have been implicated in a bribery scandal worth at least 650,000 hryvnias ($16,000). Prosecutors said their pre-trial investigation was ongoing.

Read moreMaidan Revolution protesters lament enduring corruption in Ukraine, 10 years on

(AFP)