A Kyiv judge has referred the matter to the Cabinet of Ministers regarding the unlawful use of land belonging to the Ministry of Defence in the Mykolaiv region
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- Alisa MelikadamianContributing Editor, Reporter
In 2019, it was reported that 30 per cent of the land at the «Shyrokyi Lan» military training grounds was being used illegally for agricultural purposesRoman Boiko, a judge at the Kyiv Commercial Court, has appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine regarding systematic violations in the use of military training ground land in the Mykolaiv region for agricultural purposes.
The judge issued a separate ruling on 10 August in case No. 910/8859/26, according to NikVesti.
The dispute concerned ownership of the harvest grown in 2025–2026 on two plots of land with a total area of over 4,200 hectares. The plaintiff in the case was the «Voloshchakevych» farming enterprise. The defendants were the Housing and Maintenance Department of the city of Mykolaiv and the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
During the proceedings, the court concluded that the issue is in fact systemic and goes beyond this specific dispute. The court established that defence land was transferred to business entities for the cultivation of agricultural crops through joint land cultivation agreements, which in fact may have concealed a lease arrangement. The court described the agreements as «sham», meaning that they provided for a fixed fee, the harvest remained the property of the entrepreneur, and the shares of the participants and the operator of the joint activity were not specified.
This concerns, in particular, land at the «Shyrokyi Lan» military training ground and the Kyiv-Oleksandrivskyi airfield. According to information set out in the ruling, in 2016, more than 15,600 hectares were transferred for the cultivation of agricultural crops within the boundaries of just these two ranges in the Mykolaiv region. In total, as of December 2021, over 41,786 hectares of defence land across Ukraine were involved in such a scheme.
The court emphasised that the issue had been known long before the current dispute and had been regularly reported in the media. In the ruling, the judge specifically referred to a 6 November 2019 article by NikVesti entitled «30% of the «Shyrokyi Lan» military training ground near Mykolaiv is being used illegally for agriculture». The ruling also mentions a Nikcenter article dated 7 February 2022 entitled «War for some, fields for others: who is profiting from the military training grounds in the Mykolaiv region».
However, the court states that a significant portion of the land transferred in 2016 was used until the end of 2025, and harvesting continued on it into 2026. Furthermore, the land users were selected outside of competitive tendering procedures. Roman Boiko noted separately that even court rulings declaring such contracts unlawful do not always bring an end to the use of the land.
«In this case, the existence of a court ruling does not bring such use to an end, but instead serves as grounds for concluding a similar agreement for a new term,» the ruling states.
Separately, the court analysed the cost of using the two plots of land that are the subject of the dispute. Their areas are 1,467.81 and 2,810.85 hectares. In 2018, the fee for their use was 2,290 hryvnias per hectare per year, and in 2025 — 2,967 hryvnias per hectare.
Calculation of the fee for the use of defence land. Screenshot from the ruling of the Kyiv Commercial CourtBy way of comparison, the court cited the results of land auctions in 2025, where the right to sublet state-owned agricultural land in the Mykolaiv region was sold for 12,000–16,000 hryvnias per hectare. The court estimated the potential annual losses from the use of approximately 41,000 hectares of defence land at around 400 million hryvnias.
The court cited the lack of a government-approved procedure for the use of defence land for commercial purposes as one of the causes of the problem. The judge referred to ‘more than 22 years of inaction by the Government’ regarding the approval of such a procedure.
In this regard, the court issued a separate ruling addressed to the Cabinet of Ministers. The government is required to develop and adopt a decision on the possibility of transferring defence land for commercial use, as well as to find a comprehensive solution regarding land tax for the use of such land under martial law. The court notes that resolving this issue should, in particular, reduce the number of legal disputes, put an end to the unlawful use of land, and establish competitive and transparent procedures for its transfer.
The court also sent a separate ruling to the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry is requested to carry out an audit and inventory of defence land that has been or is currently being transferred for use, put an end to their unlawful use and ensure the release of such land, initiate proceedings to hold those responsible to account, and ensure the recovery of damages caused and revenue lost by the Ministry of Defence.
The «Shyrokyi Lan» training ground is located within the territory of the Stepove community. In 2021, NikVesti reported that a conflict had flared up in the Stepove territorial community, leading to the resignation of the village head, Pavlo Hasiuk. A group of councillors attempted to reduce the tax rates on Ministry of Defence land, which could have cost the community’s budget up to 10 million hryvnias. The training ground generates millions in revenue for the local community budget every year. Farmers owned part of the Ministry of Defence’s land and thus sought to reduce their own tax burden. Hasiuk, who was unwilling to lower the rates and lose millions in budget revenue, was forced to resign under pressure. He was followed by the deputy head and the council secretary.
In February 2022, the Centre for Investigative Journalism reported that in the Mykolaiv region, 16,000 hectares of land at military training grounds had ended up in the hands of major agribusinesses and MPs. Then, in 2023, it emerged that the Security Service of Ukraine had detained a businessman who had attempted to bribe an SSU officer with 1 million hryvnias in order to appropriate land at the «Shyrokyi Lan» military training ground.
