Krasnolutsky Alexander Vasilyevich
Official biography
Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine
06.10.1978 (Lotivka, Khmelnytskyi region).
Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi graduated from the National Agrarian University with a degree in Land Management and Cadastre, qualification of a land surveyor.
From 2001 to 2006, he held various positions at the Khmelnytsky Regional Land Resources Administration.
In 2006-2007, he worked at the State Committee of Ukraine for Land Resources.
From 2007 to 2008 — Deputy Head of the Department at the State Agency of Land Resources of Ukraine;
From 2008 to 2011 — held senior positions in the State Committee of Ukraine for Land Resources;
In 2012-2014, he held senior positions at the State Agency of Land Resources of Ukraine;
In 2014, he started working at the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre and in 2019 became Deputy Head of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre.
Compromising material
Big purge in Geocadastre: why land official Krasnolutskyi went to work for the Ministry of Ecology.
Over the past twenty years, the land sector in Ukraine has become one of the largest breeding grounds for corruption and bribery. No matter who was in power, no matter what reforms were announced, the status quo has always been maintained with regard to the land issue.
The real fight against corruption and fraud in the land sector began with the arrival of the Zelenskyy team. Work is underway to amend legislation and regulations to reduce corruption risks and reduce the influence of individual officials on decision-making.
But most importantly, the systematic cleansing of the central office of the StateGeoCadastre and structural units in the regions from corrupt officials and schemers has begun.
“Honest employees with an untarnished reputation have nothing to fear, but the slightest sign of illegal or improper behavior will be immediately investigated,” said Roman Leshchenko, the newly appointed head of the StateGeoCadastre.
It is noteworthy that in the context of such trends, some old-timers of the land department have begun to actively look for new «warm» places for themselves. A striking example is Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, a man who has worked exclusively in the land department all his life.
He rose from a category I specialist in the Land Relations and Land Management Department of the Khmelnytsky Regional Land Resources Administration to the Deputy Head of the StateGeoCadastre.
But despite his brilliant career, he suddenly decided to change his job and quickly found a position as Deputy Minister of Ecology.
Such promptness cannot but raise reasonable suspicions that Krasnolutsky is one of those officials who created illegal land schemes and enriched themselves for years, and now, when they smelled something fried, decided to leave the department before it was too late.
Schemes with free land privatization
As you know, according to the law, every Ukrainian can receive more than 2 hectares of land free of charge. However, in reality, it is almost impossible for an ordinary person to get land without a bribe. And officials skillfully use this legal provision to steal land.
For example, in January 2017, the SBU uncovered a large-scale scheme for the illegal alienation of land: officials withdrew from state ownership more than 800 land plots with a total area of more than 1.6 hectares in different districts of Kyiv region through front persons. The market value of the land is UAH 1.9 billion.
This is just one high-profile case, but there are thousands of such cases in the country.
By the way, Mr. Krasnolutsky himself is in favor of abandoning free privatization, as there is not enough land for everyone. At the rate he and his colleagues have been carving up land, there will indeed be no more land left.
Fraudulent re-registration
Free privatization is not always used to steal land. Schemes with banal forgery of documents are very popular. For example, in Zaporizhzhia region, in 2018, an official of the StateGeoCadastre registered several land plots in a protected area with a total area of 4 hectares in the name of fictitious persons. The state land was resold several times to illegally legalize it. The amount of losses amounted to almost a million hryvnias.
Lease of state land
Another lucrative topic is the lease of state land. Everything is quite simple here: only those who pay bribes can lease land and extend lease agreements.
The way this works in reality can be seen in the situation in Khmelnytsky Oblast, where Krasnolutsky, by the way, started his land career. There, farmers who refuse to pay a “tax” are forced to draw up lease agreements for years.
A recent example: On January 17, 2019, in the Dnipropetrovs’k region, military prosecutors and the Security Service of Ukraine exposed an official of the State Geocadastre who demanded $31,000 for extending a lease agreement.
There are countless other cases of arbitrariness by land officials.
There is also such a type of “income” as the collection of tribute.
Thus, local officials extort money from certified land surveyors of specialized enterprises. In exchange for a monthly fee, they promise not to interfere with their licensing activities.
Of course, the central office knew about everything that was happening in the regions. The same Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, who from June 2011 to February 2019 headed the relevant department in the State Geocadastre, was one of those who supervised and covered up these frauds, and was directly involved in the distribution of corruptly obtained cash flows. If this were not the case, he simply would not have held such high-profile positions. This is a fact of Ukrainian realities. Hopefully, the current government will be able to change the situation.
However, it is surprising and disturbing that people like Oleksandr Krasnolutskyi, instead of finding themselves on the street with a “wolf’s ticket” or, even better, in the dock, are quietly finding new jobs in the executive branch.
Resume
Oleksandr Krasnolutskiy has a criminal past that he carefully conceals. It’s no secret that corruption is rampant in the Ministry of Environmental Protection, which is why Krasnolutsky, as a direct participant in the division of land and corruption schemes, quickly moved to another structure after the new government came to power.