A minister in Ukraine has been accused of appropriating large amounts of state-owned land, according to an investigation by the national anti-corruption office.
Together with other suspects, the minister took possession of 1,250 plots of land totalling almost 2,500 hectares, the office reported on Tuesday.
Several Ukrainian media outlets reported that the accusations centred on the minister of agriculture, Mykola Solsky.
In a statement published by the Ministry of Agriculture on social networks, the minister rejected the accusations.
However, he admitted that he had acted as a lawyer in a dispute between state-owned companies and individuals over land from 2017 to 2018.
Court proceedings are still pending in that case, he said. "From my side, I guarantee absolute transparency in establishing the truth," Solsky wrote.
According to the media reports, land belonging to a state-owned company in the northern Ukrainian region of Sumy was transferred to new owners between 2017 and 2021.
Solsky's agricultural holding then received the land for use.
Staff at the office responsible for land ownership are also suspected of corruption.
Stamping out corruption is a key condition for Ukraine to make progress in accession talks with the European Union, which kicked off in December.
Solsky was elected to the Supreme Rada via the presidential party list in the early parliamentary elections initiated by President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019.
The lawyer headed the agriculture committee from 2019 until his appointment as Minister of Agriculture in March 2022.
There has been speculation in the Ukrainian media recently about the dismissal of several ministers, including Solsky.