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that presented audio evidence to the public – in July 2019 and July 2020 – of the corruption of the court, led by the notorious judge Pavlo Vovk. While Sytnyk remains as NABU director, the court is also expected to submit an order to the State Bureau of Investigations to open a criminal case against the bureau for failing to fulfill the ruling of the Constitutional Court. On August 28, this court ruled that President Poroshenko exceeded his constitutional authority when appointing Sytnyk in April 2015. The ruling was immediately endorsed by the President Zelenskiy’s representative to the court. The same day, a petition on the president’s website gained the necessary 25,000 signatures to force Zelenskiy to consider submitting to parliament a bill to liquidate the scandalous Kyiv District Administrative Court. The petition, initiated by journalist Danylo Mokryk on July 30, states the court has “fully lost its authority,” particularly after the released audio recordings,”, which demonstrate the corruption deeply rooted in the court and its practice of unjust rulings.”
Zelenskiy thinks Ukraine has implemented all IMF demands. ​That is despite the fact no IMFmission has visited Kyiv for over five months. Ukraine has implemented all IMF requirements ahead of the nearest IMF loan tranche, President Zelenskiy told four television networks during an interview on October 22. “There are demands of the IMF. I think we have implemented everything. This is my personal assessment,” Zelenskiy said. He added that there are people inside and outside the country who are “working against the interests of Ukraine” and who are “interested in the absence of stability in Ukraine.” Zelenskiy also stated that Ukraine “won’t be able to live without Western money.” Zelenskiy’s position contrasts with the view expressed by Alfred Kammer, the director of the IMF’s European department, who told a press briefing on October 21 that the fund is still “working closely” with Ukraine “in terms of implementing and maintaining” the commitments and objectives of the Ukrainian government.
State land bank plagued by corruption and theft, new cadaster head says.​ ​Ukraine’s state agricultural land bank has been plagued by rampant corruption and theft for the last two decades, according to an interview published on October 20 of Roman Leshchenko, the head of the state cadaster service. As a result, 1.6mn hectares were removed from state property during this time, without even a paper trail. The status of a total of 5mn hectares is unknown, with the agency hoping to establish the owners once paper documents are fully digitalized, Leshchenko told the epravda.com.ua​ news site. The 31-yeer-old Leshchenko was appointed to his post in June 2020.​ ​In addition to the 5mn hectares of illegally transferred land, 2.3mn hectares are scheduled to be transferred to local communities, 1.7mn hectares were already transferred to local communities in 2018-2019, 0.75mn hectares remain in the ownership of state enterprises and the National Academy of Agrarian Studies, and 0.69mn hectares were illegally distributed as part of privatization schemes conducted in 2013-2020. That amounts to 10.4mn hectares in total, according to the state cadaster.​ ​Besides land being illegally privatized, unknown persons have illegally accessed the cadaster to redesignate commercial land as industrial, enabling the land owners to avoid payingbns of hryvnias in local taxes, Leshchenko said. That include UAH1bn that recently eluded the Kyiv city budget. Unknown persons have also broken into the cadaster to change the bounds and sizes of their land parcels, he said, including those owned by elites that could include prominent politicians. “If we take the elite suburban districts of Kyiv, there are land parcels with two-three owners with differing documents. Moreover, new land parcels have been
12​ UKRAINE Country Report​ November 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com