For many years, politicians of the older generation have been frightening the Ukrainian people with land reform, denying people the right to freely dispose of their land. During this time, of 7 million hectares of state-owned agricultural land, just over 2 million hectares remained, and another 5 million hectares were simply stolen. This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the interview "Autumn 2020: Victories and Challenges" for four Ukrainian TV channels.
The Head of State reminded that last week he signed a decree on the transfer of more than 2 million hectares of agricultural land from state to communal ownership, and now the united territorial communities will be able to direct land use funds to their development - building roads, repairing schools and kindergartens.
"We managed to transfer 2 million hectares to UTCs by my decree. And now they will be responsible for the use of this land, for filling the local budget. And this is right," Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed.
He noted that for almost 30 years, Ukrainian politicians have opposed the introduction of free circulation of land and lied to the people that they were allegedly protecting Ukraine's fertile chernozem from being sold to foreigners. But in reality, they stole this land through "gray" schemes.
"We analyzed how they "brainwashed" people about land reform. Then we changed the Head of the State Geocadastre, which immediately revealed all the figures - 5 million hectares were stolen. There are just over 2 million hectares of land left. There were a total of 7 million hectares. Where are the other five? They were stolen," the President said.
According to him, some of the people involved in the theft of agricultural land are still in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
Land lobbyists also opposed the introduction of the land market.
"They did not want us to carry out land reform. And what's wrong with giving people the opportunity to dispose of the land?” the Head of State remarked.
He stressed that he felt this huge opposition to the reform during the appointment of Roman Leshchenko as the Head of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre.
"Even simply appointing him Head of the State Geocadastre was difficult - daily threats, some calls," the President added.
The Head of State reminded that the opening of the land market and giving people the right to freely dispose of their land plots was in his election program. Therefore, despite the efforts of lobbyists, on March 31, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law on the circulation of agricultural land, which provides for the right to purchase land to Ukrainians from July 2021. Also on May 6, the law on the National Infrastructure of Geospatial Data was signed, which will allow organizing the registers of natural resources of Ukraine, and on July 22 the law on spatial planning of the communities’ territories was signed.