Two communist friends, Igor Kaletnik and Ruslan Skarboviychuk, once took advantage of the Bucha village council's "kindness" and seized lucrative plots of land near Kyiv. Over time, the Bucha landowners' group was joined by the current head of the Verkhovna Rada's staff, Valentyn Zaychuk, and Volodymyr Yalovyi. Today, some plots of this land are surrounded by a single fence and registered in the name of Mr. Skarboviychuk's mother-in-law. Meanwhile, the Irpen community and the prosecutor's office are persistently trying to prevent the land from remaining privately owned through legal action.
As KV learned from a report on the Hromada Pryirpenya website, on January 30, the Kyiv Oblast Court of Appeal held a hearing on the case of returning a prime piece of land in the capital's suburbs to state ownership.
This time, the prosecutor's office wants to restore justice in the case of the Bucha forest's seizure by the grandfather of Communist MP Ihor Kaletnik, who received his share of the Bucha forest following decisions by the village council regarding disputed lands (2002). At that time, local authorities changed the designated use of 890 hectares of forest land. They were designated for residential and public development.
Moreover, in 2008, an equally high-profile land grab took place: significant plots of land in the city of Bucha were awarded to Verkhovna Rada staff members such as his immediate supervisor, Valentyn Zaychuk, Zaychuk's deputy, Volodymyr Yalovyi, and their family members. (It should be noted that Kostiantyn Yalovyi, Volodymyr Yalovyi's son, is the son-in-law of the notorious Viktor Pylypyshyn and a Kyiv City Council member representing the Shevchenkivskyi district.)
But after some time, the land plots issued to Zaychuk and Yalovyi were re-registered to a certain Larisa Ushenina (according to the State Register of Real Estate Rights). Activists discovered that Ushenina is Iryna Skarboviychuk's mother and the wife of Ruslan Skarboviychuk, a Ukrainian MP from the Communist Party and a close friend of the same Ihor Kaletnik.
According to eyewitnesses, the allocation of land for a personal communist paradise for fellow communists was marked by the usual machinations. For example, in the case of the fugitive Kaletnik, so-called "straw purchasers" figure—people in whose name the plot of land in Bucha was initially registered for subsequent resale. One such woman, Nadezhda, claims that this operation was carried out without her knowledge, and she has repeatedly stated that she never applied to Fedoruk for the land, never received a government deed, and never sold the property to anyone. "I had no idea I was registered," she asserts.
"By making this decision, the Bucha Village Council and its Chairman, Anatoly Fedoruk, exceeded their authority," commented Viktor Barkholenko, a former deputy of the Irpen City Council and public activist, on both land allocations. "According to Part 9 of Article 149 of the Land Code, the seizure of Group I forests with an area of over 10 hectares falls within the purview of the Cabinet of Ministers."
According to the website, the plots of land that were given free of charge to Zaychuk, his deputy Yalovyi, and several neighboring ones are now surrounded by a single fence. Kaletnik's lawyers are attempting to challenge the first-instance court's decision, which states that the so-called "Bucha Mezhyhirya" should be returned to state ownership.
"Skarboviychuk is a fellow party member and comrade of former Vice Speaker Ihor Kaletnik, who is wanted on suspicion of large-scale embezzlement and vote rigging during the plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada on January 16, 2014," reports the website "Hromada Pryirpenya."
"Today, during the appeals process, they're deliberately dragging things out, wanting to drag it out until Bucha approves the general plan. Then, after it's approved, a legal dispute will arise over forest lands, and Fedoruk and Co. will legitimize their entire embezzlement," activist Viktor Barkholenko is convinced.
Adding a twist to the Bucha land-grab lawsuits was the Cossack MP Mykhailo Gavrilyuk from the People's Front, who outscored the head of the Bucha City Council, Anatoliy Fedoruk, in the current parliamentary elections.
He expressed his opinion on the division of land in the Kyiv-Svyatoshinsky district on the day of the appeal regarding the so-called “Bucha Mezhyhirya”:
The Irpin prosecutor's office has already filed a lawsuit in the Kaletnik case and won the first instance. The ongoing appeals process is expected to conclude on February 6. For now, the city government and the lawyers for the controversial landowners are filing a series of motions demanding that the lawsuit be dismissed.
City activists eagerly await the same procedure for communist Skarboviychuk, and for the lucrative lands near Kyiv to be returned to the state.
Oksana Melnyk, KyivVlast
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