After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of Ukraine’s independence, all major agricultural companies of the world did everything to get their hands on very valuable land in Ukraine, reports Magyar Nemzet, which Rador cites.

Wheat harvest in Zaporizhzhia (Ukraine) in 2020Photo: Ukrinform / Avalon / Profimedia

Of course, Ukrainian politicians tried to prevent this trend, they wanted the land to remain in the hands of Ukrainians. But on June 1, 2021, a change took place: Volodymyr Zelenskyy succumbed to pressure from the West, primarily America, through the IMF, and allowed foreign buyers to buy real estate.

It is not surprising: large American agricultural companies, as well as Ukrainians, who rushed to help them – and who had previously promised everything – bought up a third of Ukrainian land in a few months.

Promises of loans and favorable referendums have not brought results, and in the current war inflation, surplus profits go to the pockets of large American companies, and Ukraine is completely ruined, says the article published by the Hungarian portal Origó and selected by the newspaper “Magyar Nemzet”.

Strange coincidences

A few days ago it became known that about a third of cultivated land in Ukraine already belongs to American multinational companies. All this explains well why the US supports the Ukrainians with weapons. The purchase of land by foreigners in Ukraine has been on the agenda since the country declared independence in 1991, but only in 2019 did it revive after Volodymyr Zelensky came to power.

It is interesting that in 2001, a thirteen-year moratorium on the sale of land to foreigners was introduced in the country, and the so-called second moratorium was launched in 2014, notes Origo. The result of the latter was the removal of Viktor Yanukovych from power, and thus Poroshenko came to power, who was much friendlier to the Americans than his predecessor, but after the loss of Crimea and part of Donbas, he was forced to enter a forced trajectory.

Back in 2018, the Americans lobbied for land privatization

But it is more interesting that one of the issues of the economic newspaper The Ukraine Business Journal for 2018 devoted 64 pages to presenting the opportunities of foreigners in Ukrainian agriculture. In the voluminous magazine there are statements such as that Ukraine could feed up to eight hundred million people if appropriate investments are made in the agricultural sector.

It is not surprising that on the first pages of the magazine, the authors of the articles talk about the need to cancel the moratorium on the purchase of land, which was previously discussed in the context of the successful agrarian reform in Ukraine, as well as about the admission of foreign capital. It is also not surprising that the magazine is published in English.

The publication also notes that only credit schemes of large American banks (JP Morgan and CitiBank) can help small Ukrainian farms.

At the time, analysts predicted that without lifting the moratorium on land, the Ukrainian economy would collapse by 2020 without foreign aid. In the publication, Western experts recommended how to build a successful agricultural company.

What happened to the referendum?

On March 4, 2021, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Roman Leshchenko, in a large-scale article published on the website of the Atlantic Council think tank, which belongs to the sphere of interests of George Soros, spoke about the benefits of land privatization for the country.

Of course, he did not talk about the danger of leaving Ukrainian land in other people’s hands, rather he claimed that everyone would benefit from the sale of the land. In addition, he noted that the agrarian reform will help ordinary Ukrainians rise, not the country’s billionaires, and that Ukraine will be able to feed the whole world after a successful reform.

Since then, time has clearly proven that the minister’s article had only an ideological justification for the transfer of Ukrainian lands into American hands.

The Minister of Agriculture repeatedly promised that they would organize a referendum on the new land law, but this referendum has not yet taken place. Moreover, in the current war situation, one should not expect a referendum in Ukraine, where, moreover, almost all opposition parties are banned, explains the Hungarian portal Origó.

Help came at a price

Now, according to some data, giant multinational companies – as well as the investors and foundations behind them – own 28 percent of Ukraine’s arable land, but even more modest sources say several million hectares.

The US State Department, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank demanded the transfer of Ukrainian land into foreign hands. Ukrainians resisted for a long time until Zelensky came.

Seven years ago, George Soros said about Ukraine:

I am ready. There are specific investment ideas, for example, in agriculture and infrastructure projects.

I would contribute a billion dollars. They must be profitable. My foundation will benefit from this. After this statement by George Soros, pseudo-public organizations close to the American billionaire launched a serious media campaign for the as soon as possible cancellation of the moratorium on the purchase of land in Ukraine. And the pressure was successful, because from July 1, 2021, the road to the land market in Ukraine was opened for foreigners.

Of course, previous promises did not bring anything, small Ukrainian farmers and ordinary Ukrainians did not receive any help from multinational companies and large American banks, Origo noted.

Americans are profiting from Ukraine

“While in recent decades great powers fought each other over gold or oil, in the future basic needs such as water or agricultural land will be at the center of conflicts,” an analyst at the Hungarian Nézőpont Institute told Magyar. Nemzet Newspaper, Rező Kristián Erdélyi.

According to the specialist, due to global warming and climate change, quality agricultural land will become an increasingly important treasure. And why are American companies interested in Ukrainian agricultural lands thousands of kilometers away? The so-called chernozems or chernozems are the most valuable in the world, their price is slowly equaling that of gold.

Throughout history, many have wanted to claim these lands, but now it looks like the Americans will be the first. Thanks to these operations, giant foreign companies can consolidate their interests in Ukraine for a long time in the sphere of production, processing and export, and therefore, receive huge profits.

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