Legalized extortion: how fabricated cases against "Chervonyi Zemlerob" are becoming a threat to the state

For decades the agricultural enterprise "Chervonyi Zemlerob" in Kirovohrad region declined. Everyone who felt like it squeezed the last drops out of it without investing a single hryvnia. But in 2025 a professional turnaround management team finally came to the enterprise. In a year and a half of leadership, Yurii Nemikin raised it from ruins, restarted the production cycle, began paying taxes and repaying debts. "Chervonyi Zemlerob" entered the top three state agricultural enterprises in the country for yield in 2026. And then the law enforcement machine suddenly woke up. A man who is restoring the country’s economy amid war, crop failures and port blockades became the target of a real hunt — as if an enemy. This is the story of how Yurii Nemikin and the staff of "Chervonyi Zemlerob" found themselves alone against a predatory clan structure that decided to "gut" the revived enterprise.

Why is success a threat to the system?

For many years the state enterprise "Chervonyi Zemlerob" was a textbook example of what a mismanaged state asset becomes. For decades its resources were divided among everyone nearby: local Kirovohrad "elites," outright bandits and people in uniform closely tied to law enforcement structures. The enterprise was looted, driven into multimillion debts. It passed from hand to hand, losses grew, and the land fell into neglect.

All those years the law enforcement agencies that today are applying unprecedented pressure on the enterprise saw no problems. They did not notice the embezzled property, the neglected fields, or the multimillion debts to the budget. Until in 2025 a "pattern break" occurred: the competition for the leadership position was won by a person who, thanks to professionalism and reputation, began to truly develop the state asset instead of looting it and driving it to bankruptcy.

But it turned out that the power system in Kirovohrad region was used to functioning differently. And a system that, unfortunately, is not result-oriented immediately recognized him as an "outsider."

Yurii Nemikin, who had significant management experience and a reputation as a turnaround manager, treated his appointment to the state enterprise as a professional challenge. By the way, he had worked for 30 years in law enforcement, and after leaving served in private companies. He now had to solve a difficult task — apply turnaround experience in the public sector.

The legacy Nemikin inherited looked like this. On the warehouses — not a single sack of seed. The fields were so overrun with weeds that yield was out of the question: first the land had to be cleared for sowing. Of machinery — two broken tractors. The enterprise was a chronic debtor, and every hryvnia that came into accounts was immediately written off by the tax service toward old debts.

Tax debt left by previous managers amounted to about 10 million UAH. Another roughly 40 million UAH related to obligations to other creditors, including those linked to bankruptcy procedures. In total — almost 80 million UAH of debts accumulated over years that no one intended to repay.

Moreover, the enterprise carried a trail of about thirty criminal cases left from the past. Because of them no elevator would agree to accredit the enterprise. The farm was toxic: nobody wanted to deal with it. It seemed like a hopeless situation…

How to get the state sector out of losses

Yurii Mykolaiovych Nemikin headed "Chervonyi Zemlerob" after a competition. For the enterprise’s team, appointing an experienced agribusiness manager was, without exaggeration, a chance for salvation.

But what do you do when there is no money, no resources, no equipment, and above all — no trust from financial and business structures? Everyone shied away from it like from fire. Nemikin began visiting banks, traders, elevators, suppliers. Everywhere he heard the same thing — refusal. Still, a company agreed to help, where Nemikin was known from previous work and trusted. They saw his cooperation proposal as realistic given the turnaround techniques in his management arsenal.

Thus a model was born that the enterprise’s staff consider a positive example of public-private partnership. Unfortunately, there are few such examples in Ukraine: where, without fancy presentations and loud words, private business assumes financial and production risks and a state enterprise gets a chance to survive.

In fact, this case should be taken as a basis and scaled across Ukraine. It is obvious the country needs tax revenues, revival of production, job creation and social stability more than ever. But the "masters" of Kirovohrad region, who turned law enforcement agencies into a baseball bat in the hands of racketeers, apparently think otherwise.

How to break the vicious cycle of debt?

There is a simple rule in agriculture: to harvest in the fall you must invest money in sowing in the spring. That means long before the first revenue arrives you need to buy seed, fertilizers, crop protection agents, repair equipment, pay for fuel and labor.

Only then, after a few months if the weather is favorable, do these expenses turn into grain.

But "Chervonyi Zemlerob" had nowhere to get money — debts prevented managing incoming funds. Of course they could again pause the production cycle, skip sowing and lose another year without earning a single hryvnia. How to break that vicious circle?

Private partner structures took on financing the production cycle. Funds were provided to grow the future crop, materials were purchased and field work performed — from fertilizing to crop treatment.

Since the state enterprise had no free cash, it was planned that "Chervonyi Zemlerob" would pay partners with the future harvest. Such arrangements are widespread in agriculture and are not unusual or criminal. But precisely these agreements, to the detriment of the state and contrary to economic logic, law and all legal procedures, are being attempted to be turned into evidence of a crime that did not and does not exist.

If there is no corpus delicti, if it is fabricated, then essentially we are dealing with falsification that is clearly carried out in someone's "upper" interests. After all, ordinary law enforcement officers would hardly brazenly and cynically violate the law on their own initiative.

From wreckage to third place in the country

Nemikin’s team entered the enterprise in the second half of April 2025 — when all normal agronomic deadlines had already been missed. Instead, in May and June they had to literally cut through weeds on neglected fields that had not been worked for years. Although late and under extremely difficult conditions, the sowing was completed in full.

But another problem arose: 2025 was one of the driest years in recent decades. Yields in the region fell across all agribusinesses. For "Chervonyi Zemlerob," which physically did not have time to properly prepare for the season, the result was even more modest. Still, the enterprise held on.

For the first time in many years it began not to accumulate debts but to repay them. During 2025–2026 about 5 million UAH of tax debt was returned to the budget. Management set a goal to repay almost the entire tax debt of 38 million UAH by the end of the current year, which had only been growing before.

And in 2026 what the staff of "Chervonyi Zemlerob" call "Nemikin’s miracle" happened — the completely ruined debtor enterprise rose to third place in Ukraine for yield among state agricultural enterprises.

An enterprise that a year and a half earlier had no seed, no tractors, no hope was among the best in the country. It would seem this is a success story the state should showcase. But the story took a very different turn.

How "greetings" grew into lawlessness

As soon as the enterprise began to rise, "guests" started coming. Starting in the fall of 2025 a series of inspections began: commissions, environmental law compliance claims, land checks.

An enterprise that yesterday no one cared about suddenly became the object of intense attention.

We all understand how this usually happens in Ukrainian realities. First calls, "transmitting greetings," veiled hints, and then open threats: you are "outsiders" here in Kirovohrad region, we will put you all behind bars… Everything like the well-known American saying: "Texans should be robbed by Texans." In this case — by "Kirovohrad residents."

Pressure on the workforce and its leader gradually intensified. The cherry on top was a report by operative officer Oleksandr Shevchuk of the Strategic Investigations Department of the National Police in Kirovohrad region. Both enterprise employees and external experts, having read his version of the "crime," say in one voice: the report was written by someone who does not understand the specifics of agricultural economics. All accusations are literally pulled out of thin air — or rather simply invented.

At a certain point the absence of a corpus delicti became obvious even to Shevchuk himself, and he began to "correct" the initial version. Apparently he received an instruction to open a case by any means, no matter the cost. First the enterprise was baselessly accused: "You stole wheat." But no evidence was found. Then: "You stole sunflower." And again nothing was found.

Who gave Shevchuk the order to initiate unlawful pressure we will tell in due course. But he accomplished the task set by his "masters" — on the basis of fabricated accusations laid out in his report, an investigation was launched. Logically the investigator should have conducted an independent procedural analysis of the report and noted the groundlessness and absurdity of the accusations. But for some reason that did not happen. Nor did the prosecutor notice it…

This scheme of unlawful pressure on business is not new: an operative's version that has nothing to do with reality is taken as a basis, and then the law enforcement system, ignoring the lack of a crime, opens fire to damage. The work of a labor collective that had just begun to return to normal activity was paralyzed.

Endless searches and seizures began in the offices of "Chervonyi Zemlerob" and partner companies — nearly down to the paperclips. And again they found nothing illegal, no document evidencing violations. After that total wiretapping began — and again nothing.

Time and again officials of "Chervonyi Zemlerob" patiently explained every operation in detail and provided all documents proving their legality. But all this was ignored, not attached to the case and therefore not taken into account. The investigation’s task was clearly to find evidence of guilt where such evidence never existed. And could not exist.

Given the enterprise's toxic history, partners from the start decided to insure against such lawlessness: all procedures underwent prior legal audit and were therefore absolutely lawful and transparent. Business was conducted strictly "aboveboard." As it turned out, not without reason. Unfortunately, the rule of law in Ukraine ends at the border of Kirovohrad region, where strict compliance with the law does not protect against legal arbitrariness. On the contrary, it provokes those who consider themselves the "masters of the region" like a red rag to a bull.

How an advance payment became "embezzlement"

On 18 October 2025 the investigative department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in Kirovohrad region registered criminal proceeding No. 12025120000000665 under part 4 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — appropriation, embezzlement of property or seizure of it by abusing official position. The basis was the same report by operative Shevchuk. According to it, the state enterprise’s grain was allegedly sold at significantly understated prices, causing damage to the state.

You don't need to be a genius to see conscious falsification in this accusation. At "Chervonyi Zemlerob" they have already explained to investigators a hundred times where this fabricated "undervalued price" came from. It concerns forward contracts — a standard instrument to finance a future harvest used by farmers worldwide.

The enterprise needs money for sowing but the harvest does not yet exist. The buyer transfers an advance in exchange for an obligation to deliver grain after harvest. This advance is just part of the total price; the rest is paid after delivery.

The example given at the enterprise is understandable even to someone far from agriculture. A ton of grain costs 9 thousand UAH. In spring the buyer transfers 3 thousand UAH as an advance so the farm has money for seed and fuel. After harvest he pays another 6 thousand UAH. Let us repeat: 3 thousand is not the "undervalued sale price" of the grain, but only the first advance payment! The real full price at which the state enterprise was actually settled is 9 thousand!

Moreover, documents provided by "Chervonyi Zemlerob" show that after harvest buyers fully paid the state enterprise. The tax records clearly reflect: the grain sold by the enterprise in 2025 was paid in full, and there is no receivable from buyers for it.

All this is confirmed by primary documents available to the investigation, but it stubbornly ignores them. Assessing the deal by the first advance payment without regard to the rest of the contract terms is a legal nonsense! Only an extremely incompetent person or a person driven by malicious intent can take an advance payment from the Unified Register of Tax Invoices and declare it the "sale price"!

When an ordinary business operation is turned into a "sale of state property at an undervalued price," this can be considered an attempt to falsify a criminal case. And that itself can constitute a criminal offense. The staff of "Chervonyi Zemlerob" are convinced this matter must be the subject of checks by competent authorities.

How to find what no one hid

When the attempt to present an advance payment as the final grain price began to stall, new episodes appeared in the case without any grounds — about sunflower and yields. Later these episodes were separated, but materials related to them still remain in the first criminal proceeding, which the defense considers a direct procedural violation.

The logic of the accusation is this: if yield turned out lower than expected, then part of the product was hidden. But a discrepancy between expected and actual yield proves nothing in itself — especially in an abnormally dry year on fields that had been overrun with weeds for many years. Expected yield is called expected because nature does not always comply with human wishes.

The enterprise’s specialists pointed out to investigators that allegations of concealment can be proved, not asserted, only after analysis of sowing areas, combine data, weighing complexes, warehouse accounting, transportation records…

The investigation interviewed employees, obtained full access to a huge array of documents and information on transactions with counterparties. And again found nothing supporting the version of hidden harvest! There is a chasm between assumptions about how much the farm "should have" harvested and proof of how much it actually harvested. Operative fantasies cannot fill that chasm.

Since the first case was falling apart, a second one was hastily organized. On 6 July 2026 details of proceeding No. 12026120000000254 were entered into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations. The same article — part 4 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. But now they invented a different reason. It concerned the alleged embezzlement of the 2026 crop — that very record harvest that put the enterprise among the top three in the country.

The initiator was the same "ready for anything" operative who wrote the first report — Oleksandr Shevchuk. Others apparently refused to take part in this "circus."

Aside from absolute legal arbitrariness, there is another aspect to this case. Recently President Volodymyr Zelensky announced an expansion of support programs for Ukrainian businesses operating under wartime conditions and of critical importance to Ukraine's defense and economy. But in Kirovohrad region law enforcement understood that call in a very peculiar way.

It turns out the better an enterprise works, the more suspicions law enforcement develops. Didn't find embezzlement in the 2025 harvest — look in the 2026 harvest. If not found in 2026 — continue terrorizing in 2027… What new facts emerged? How does the second case differ from the first? The enterprise’s staff never received answers to these questions.

It's no secret that by the end of the year a tax hole of 70 billion hryvnias is expected. And who should the government and the Ukrainian people "thank" for it? These "Shevchuks" and their "roof," which involves investigators and prosecutors in clan groups and illegal schemes.

Sixty-four sanctions!

The scale of unlawful "attention" to one single, not largest but revived agricultural enterprise is striking! Within the criminal proceedings 64 court authorizations were obtained for investigative actions: temporary access to documents, numerous searches, seizures, covert investigative actions, including obtaining information from telecommunications networks and intruding into private communications.

Surveillance has been secretly established on Nemikin himself. "I'm a record-holder!" Yurii Mykolaiovych jokes bitterly. "So many sanctions didn't happen to Mindich or Kravchenko." Sadly, there is too much truth in that joke: the director of a state agricultural enterprise who raised it from ruins received a level of covert surveillance unknown even to figures in the country's most high-profile corruption investigations.

And the courts that grant permissions for this abnormal conveyor of wiretaps, surveillance and searches are not bothered. Like the investigation and the prosecutor's office, they ignore the absence of a crime in the actions of the enterprise's management.

Why wiretap a person for months if all enterprise operations — contracts, payments, tax invoices, warehouse registers, transport documents — are on the table and open for verification? There is only one answer: the system is not interested in the legal status of actions; it is carrying out an order "from above" — to exert the maximum possible pressure on "Chervonyi Zemlerob."

Is the purpose of the investigation to inflict maximum harm?

On 30 July and 19 August 2026 searches were carried out at "Chervonyi Zemlerob" and its counterparties — in managers' offices and in warehouses where product was stored. Grain was seized: both that stored at the state enterprise and that already owned by private companies that bought it under contracts.

The investigator recognized the grain as material evidence and initiated its seizure. For the enterprise this was a blow to the heart. For a company that had just got back on its feet, grain is everything at once: wages for the staff, payments to creditors, money for the next season. Taking it away means cutting off the oxygen.

Part of the seized grain was intended to settle with those who financed the crop: supplied fertilizers, performed field work, advanced funds. By arresting the grain, law enforcement effectively blocked the ability to pay partners who, together with Yurii Nemikin, believed in reviving the enterprise.

From the "Krasnyi zemlerob" warehouse 700 tons of grain were seized that were intended for animal feed and the sowing campaign, effectively depriving the enterprise of prospects. What is this if not deliberate sabotage? The first-instance court understood this well and did not satisfy the investigator's motion to seize the grain. However the prosecutor, with persistence deserving better use, appealed to the court again, apparently aiming to finish off the enterprise, "freeing" it from personnel and the state from an asset that could earn money at privatization. The appellate court sided with the enterprise. Unlike "Chervonyi Zemlerob," the prosecutor's office has no specialists able to feed 90 pigs in their yard at their own expense and without grain. Thus the appeal was also dismissed.

Private partners of the state enterprise who purchased grain suffered worse. Under prosecutor pressure, the first-instance court decision was overturned. Almost 5 thousand tons of grain were put under arrest, depriving entrepreneurs of the ability to fulfill contractual obligations to "Chervonyi Zemlerob." The state enterprise could not receive the money due for the grain it could not dispose of. On what grounds was it seized? Who will be responsible? When and to whom did ownership of that grain transfer? If the goal was to inflict maximum harm, then it seems the investigators did not care about such questions.

The investigation continued the practice of fabricating violations. It's easy to do if you ignore the realities of agribusiness: grain is constantly moving — from field to temporary site, to elevator, to buyer, to another company's warehouse. It is natural that the actual movement of product, its accounting, the execution of delivery and transfer of ownership do not always coincide in time. Yet each stage is documented. So understanding the whole picture is easy after studying the full chain of documents.

However the investigation did otherwise: it built a version based on isolated accounting entries mechanically torn from context. As a result of such crude manipulations another episode emerged — about roughly 2 thousand tons of grain allegedly removed without proper documentation. No one explained which batches of grain it referred to. From where to where were they moved? Who owned them? What documents accompanied them?

Just like that — 2 thousand tons of unknown origin removed, unknown how and where. And this is seriously presented as evidence!

Who will pay for the unlawful "banquet"?

The activities of Kirovohrad law enforcement are hard to qualify other than deliberate sabotage. Accounts and grain seized. Fields not being worked. Sowing not done. Taxes not paid. The enterprise that was raised from ruins over a year and a half has stopped. Who will pay for this? Who will pay partners' fees? Who will pay for preserving the harvest? Losses grow every day.

Seized grain must be stored somewhere: pay for storage capacities, maintenance, security, monitor the product’s condition.

Next question: who will now pay salaries? Today about 60 people work at "Chervonyi Zemlerob." For them this is not lines in a criminal case but wages, jobs and the ability to feed their families. If the stoppage drags on, layoffs will become inevitable.

What will happen to the agricultural enterprise next? Without timely sowing next year will bring even greater losses — weeds will return to fields the Nemikin team fought for a year and a half. The devastation the state enterprise had so arduously recovered from will return thanks to those who, by logic, should have protected the state's interests. Today they are doing what neither enemy rockets nor port blockades could do — they are finishing off the agricultural sector and the companies that sustain the industry. And what will the state get as a result of this destructive pressure by law enforcement?

A state asset subject to privatization is rapidly devaluing again, debts grow, development is impossible... Who would want to buy such a ruined farm? Maybe Shevchuk together with the investigator and prosecutors will take part in such a tender? Unlikely.

Who stands behind the system of Kirovohrad lawlessness?

Let's answer frankly: what is needed for such a mad mechanism of lawlessness against "Chervonyi Zemlerob" to operate at full capacity? For a criminal case to move in one direction for years, one operative is not enough. You need an investigator who does not ask unnecessary questions. You need a procedural manager who does not notice the obvious. You need a prosecutor's office that agrees. You need courts that stamp authorizations.

The names of people capable of influencing this entire chain in Kirovohrad region are well known. These names repeatedly surface when talking with local farmers, entrepreneurs and some regional council deputies. A striking picture emerges — Kirovohrad region has been almost occupied by a clan headed by a regional official who built a career in law enforcement for almost thirty years. That was enough time to build an extensive system of corrupt ties and to embed family members in it. As a result Kirovohrad region received a "family contract" of law enforcement officials accustomed to using their influence to levy a "tribute" on state assets and private business. Their activities certainly deserve a separate journalistic investigation, which is yet to come.

But the worst part is that behaving like highway robbers, this clan hides behind ties "at the very top." They talk about it everywhere so brazenly that they have brought the situation to the brink of almost a new "Mindichgate" — only with a Kirovohrad flavor! Does the country’s leadership know about all their lawless antics locally? Unlikely. Will people in Kyiv be glad that they are being used and set up in the dark in Kirovohrad region? Unlikely. Will the regional law enforcement clan chief’s "top" connections, which he uses to cover his lawlessness, help him? Judging by recent moods at that "very top," they are unlikely to risk their reputation for someone already beyond redemption.

"We are interested in the state investigating everything honestly and impartially. We have nothing to hide," say people at the enterprise. Yurii Nemikin also does not intend to back down. He has already appealed to the President of Ukraine, the State Bureau of Investigation and the State Property Fund demanding an independent review of all circumstances of the criminal proceedings against the enterprise. It is easy to calculate how much this "investigation" has already cost the state. And to compare the imaginary losses the investigators sought with the real losses they have already caused.

The problem goes far beyond Kirovohrad region. Its resolution will determine whether domestic and foreign business will continue to take on restoring ruined state assets. Will they learn a simple lesson: raise a state enterprise from ruins — and you will be met not with gratitude but with a search.