Ukrainian prosecutors probe use of radioactively contaminated land in Chernobyl zone for agribusiness purposes

MOSCOW. May 7 (Interfax) - Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have officially notified the former director and owner of a private company and the former heads of two village councils in the Kiev region of being suspected of misappropriating more than 190 hectares of land in the Chernobyl reserve. They are charged with using a knowingly forged document and committing fraud on an especially large scale by a group of individuals acting upon a preliminary collusion, Ukrainian media reported citing the Prosecutor General's Office.

"Under the procedural guidance of the Specialized Environmental Prosecution Service under the Prosecutor General's Office, entrepreneurs and former officials who, according to the investigation, illegally removed more than 190 hectares of the Chernobyl reserve's land from state control have been notified of being treated as suspects," it said.

The suspects are the former director and owner of a private company and the former heads of two village councils in the Kiev region, it said.

According to investigators, they fraudulently acquired the right to permanently use three plots of land in the Chernobyl zone. These are radiation-hazardous lands in the Vyshgorod district, which became part of the Chernobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve in 2016.

The investigation established that the suspects used a fictitious decision by the Polessky district council, which in fact did not exist, to change the land's status by illegally transferring it to communal ownership and granting a private company the right of its permanent use.

From 2020 to 2025, these lands were used as ordinary agricultural lands to grow wheat and corn without special permits, which could have posed hazards to human life and health.

The investigation has filed a motion with a court to take the suspects into pretrial custody.

Prosecutors also filed a lawsuit with the Kiev Regional Economic Court to return the land to the state's control, alleging that authorized government agencies failed to take efficient measures to protect the state's interests and return the radioactively contaminated land to state ownership. The court opened proceedings.