Roman Leshchenko, 32, Ukraine’s new minister of agriculture, will take office on Feb. 1, but he’s already got a lot on his plate.
Leshchenko will lead the ministry as a long-anticipated agricultural land market is set to begin in July. Right now, however, he faces personal troubles: his former employer, U.S. farmer Kurt Groszhans, is suing Leshchenko for allegedly stealing Hr 6.6 million, or $250,000.
After two years of disputes, Leshchenko approached Groszhans through his lawyers and paid the taken money back the week before he was appointed minister on Dec. 17. Leshchenko said he had borrowed the money, which is disputed by Groszhans.
While the American received the money, he now wants Leshchenko to pay damages. Groszhans claims he additionally suffered losses exceeding $485,000 as he didn’t have the money needed to keep running his business and his farming company lost two years of harvest.
Groszhans filed two lawsuits against the new minister in Ukraine in May–October 2020. “I have nothing to lose. I just want justice at that point,” Groszhans told the Kyiv Post on Jan. 20.
Despite numerous attempts to reach out to Leshchenko — via his personal and professional emails, personal phone number and through his Facebook page — the new agriculture minister did not answer the Kyiv Post to request for comment.
Leshchenko has never mentioned the dispute publicly.
Secret transfers
When Groszhans settled in Ukraine in February 2017, he dreamt of growing soybeans, corn, and wheat on the country’s famous black soil.
Upon his arrival, he invested $350,000 in a farm near Malyn, a town of 26,000 people in Zhytomyr Oblast, which is about 100 kilometers northwest of Kyiv. He also imported $650,000 worth of machines, which are now idling.
His dream turned into a nightmare when he appointed Leshchenko as the director of his company Groszhans LLC, where Leshchenko worked in March–September 2018.
According to bank transfers viewed by Ukraine’s courts and obtained by the Kyiv Post, Leshchenko secretly moved roughly $250,000 from Groszhans LLC to his own company Progress LLC during his tenure.
According to article 238 of Ukraine’s Civil Code, an executive cannot transfer funds from a company he does not own to himself or his own company.
Groszhans ended up with no working capital, barely enough money to live on, and farming equipment he can no longer use. Even though Groszhans still owns his company in Ukraine, he couldn’t invest in growing crops and lost two years of yields.
“I had to put a mortgage on my house in the U.S. to continue living,” he said. He borrowed $350,000.
He still cannot continue farming in Ukraine because of the lack of working capital, awaiting his two lawsuits — one in the Cherkasy court against Leshchenko’s Progress LLC and another against Leshchenko himself in Kyiv’s Economic Court — to be satisfied.
Groszhans has also contacted Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau because police told him the agency was the most competent to investigate officials, but to no avail.
Groszhans also fears Leshchenko’s new position at the head of the agriculture ministry will make him feel powerful and that he eventually will escape justice.
Position of power
Dialogues between Leshchenko and Groszhans in messenger application WhatsApp obtained by the Kyiv Post has shown that Leshchenko threatened his former business partner.
Leshchenko said he could have Groszhans put in jail thanks to his vast political connections if the American pursues his claims against him.
“But if you continue (to) terrorize me, I will put all information to the legal body, and you will go to jail,” Leshchenko wrote to Groszhans in a message dated February 2019.
Leshchenko will take office on Feb. 1, when the government fully reinstates the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food.
In September 2019, the Cabinet of Ministers reorganized the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, merging it with the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade, and Agriculture. But the government has recently canceled this decision.
Investigation journalist Igor Stakh claimed in an Oct. 15 interview that Leshchenko’s contribution to the campaign of President Volodymyr Zelensky during parliament elections in 2019 played a big role in his appointment.
He gave over $60,000 (Hr 1.6 million) to Zelensky’s Servant of the People party during the campaign, which he failed to declare back then, according to Antikor.com.ua, a news website covering corruption cases. He escaped penalties thanks to a controversial Oct. 29 ruling by the Constitutional Court, which reset the e-declaration system in Ukraine.
Leshchenko began his career as a lawmaker in Cherkasy Oblast and began teaching financial law at Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University in 2013.
One of the most vocal lobbyists for opening Ukrainian farmland to sales, Leshchenko headed the State Service for Geodesy, Cartography, and Cadastre from June 2020 until December.
The year 2021 will be a watershed moment for the newly-reinstated ministry. The land market reform voted in April 2020 will come into effect on July 1, opening a free trade of agricultural land in the country for Ukrainian citizens, instead of the decades-long system when people couldn’t sell their land and had to lease it.
During his Dec. 17 speech at the parliament when announcing that he’d take office, Leshchenko pledged to make the agriculture industry more transparent and help farmers receive state support. He added that his ministry would provide benefits to small farmers.
“I promise that we will fulfill the historic mission to restore the Ministry of Agrarian Policy for the sake of our future generations,’’ Leshchenko said.
In a statement that Groszhans sent to the Kyiv Post through his lawyers, the American said that Ukrainians should be wary of Leshchenko’s statements because his integrity is questionable.
