Just 45 kilometers from the capital, a conflict has been going on for over ten years, tearing the community of Obukhiv apart from within. Pensioners go to rallies, fields are guarded by police, and crops are destroyed by tractors. At first glance, it is an ordinary dispute between an agricultural enterprise and peasants. In fact, it is an echo of a large-scale land distribution scheme that was laid out back in 2013 by the then head of the State Geocadastre of the Kyiv region, Lyudmila Prykhodko. This is what the StopKor in its investigation.
It all started with hopes. The workers of the former state farm, and later the joint-stock company "Obukhovske", were promised land. The company prepared a project, determined a list of employees, and even signed preliminary lease agreements. But when the documents were already on the table of the State Land Committee, they were informed: everything was stopped at the request of the prosecutor's office.
And here another movie begins. During the period when the State Geocadastre database was not actually updated, Prykhodko stopped entering information about old state acts. The lands that were actually in use by the enterprise appeared "free" on the cadastral map. And those plots that "suddenly" appeared in the system were received only by those who had previously concluded an agreement with the private company "Rosa-L".
The company's lawyer, Kateryna Shkolna, emphasizes: most of those who are demanding land today had no connection to PJSC "Obukhovske" at all. Often, these are fictitious applicants, registered to cover up the scheme. In addition, people were given more than 3 hectares per person, despite the norm of 2 hectares - which in itself is a violation.
The situation was complicated by the emergence of an “initiative group” led by local deputy Volodymyr Yevmenov. It holds protests, blocks the work of the enterprise, and in fact is waging its own struggle for control over the land. The actions themselves, as written on social networks, are organized for significant amounts — up to $10,000 per action.
The culmination of the absurdity was the destruction of crops — for example, 25 hectares of corn crops were destroyed. And all this — not because of war, not because of shelling, but because of a legal war caused by manipulations in the cadastre ten years ago.
Today, Lyudmila Prykhodko has been extradited to Ukraine and is in pre-trial detention. She is suspected of seizing over 1,000 hectares of land near Kyiv. But the consequences of her activities in Obukhiv are not over — hundreds of people still cannot register their shares, courts are not issuing final decisions, and the police continue to regularly respond to calls.
Against the backdrop of war, export blockades, and the loss of arable land in the south, the fields in the center of the country have become the theater of the internal land front. And while officials sue and communities quarrel, crops are dying and peasants are left without land that should have been theirs ten years ago.
