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U.S. Corporate Land Grab in Ukraine Underlies War With Russia

Heralded as a hero in Western media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has allowed foreign private interests to steal his country’s best land

Jeremy Kuzmarov, Dec 20, 2024 Originally published in CovertAction Magazine

In early November, Barbara Bonte, a Belgian member of the European Union (EU) parliament, raised concern about the sell-off of Ukrainian land on a massive scale to U.S. private equity firms along with some Saudi agro-industrial and investment businesses.

Bonte wrote to the EU parliament that, “according to several disquieting reports, mainly U.S. but also Saudi agro-industrial and investment businesses are purchasing Ukrainian farmland on a massive scale. Cargill, ADM, BlackRock, Oaktree Capital Management and Bunge Limited, for instance, have reportedly gained control over much of Ukraine’s farmland.”

Bonte then posed two questions to the EU parliament as follows:

“1. What is the Commission’s assessment of the impact of this sell-off of European farmland to multinationals serving only U.S. interests on EU strategic food-supply dependence? How does the Commission intend to address that impact?”

“2. This strongly suggests that the United States is seeking to recoup its military support for Ukraine, and ensure a geopolitical presence there in a post-war scenario through control over Ukrainian farmland and the profits it generates. How does the Commission intend to prevent the United States from cherry-picking in Ukraine and Europe from being left to deal with just the handicaps?”

Bonte’s questions are significant ones that point to a hidden, underlying motive to the war in Ukraine and U.S. and European support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The bonanza offered to foreign investors resembles past wars where young people were sacrificed on the altar of corporate profits.

War and Theft

A detailed analysis of the land grab in Ukraine by Western corporations was provided in a 2023 report by the Oakland Institute^[1] entitled “War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land.”

Written by Frédéric Mousseau, a food security consultant, and Eve Devillers, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, the report starts by emphasizing Ukraine’s function as a “breadbasket of Europe” with its 33 million acres of arable land and “large swaths of the most fertile farmland in the world.”

In 2021, Zelensky initiated a land reform program as part of the structural adjustment program begun under the auspices of Western financial institutions that enabled U.S.-based corporations to take over Ukraine’s land.^[2]

The structural adjustment program had been opposed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was overthrown in the 2014 U.S.-backed Maidan coup.

After Zelensky’s “land reform” was initiated, about five million hectares—the size of two Crimeas—were outright “stolen” by private interests.

The thieves included Goldman Sachs, a Wall Street investment firm well represented in the Biden administration, which in April 2022 bought NN Investment Partners Holding N.V., a Netherlands-based company that is a major shareholder in Ukraine’s biggest landowner, Kernel Holding S.A, and in Astarta, another large landowner in Ukraine.^[3]

Vanguard Group Inc., which gave $45,473 to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and $98,551 to Joe Biden in 2020, was another Wall Street firm that bought up Ukrainian land cheaply.^[4]

Some large U.S. pension funds, foundations and university endowments are invested in Ukrainian land through NCH Capital—a U.S.-based private equity fund headquartered at Rockefeller Plaza in New York, which is the fifth largest landholder in Ukraine with its possession of 290,749 hectares.^[5]

NCH Capital currently faces accusations of unlawful land acquisition, tax evasion, and illicit financial activity. In 2015, its founder and CEO, George Rohr, was part of the high-level meetings involving Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and U.S. Commerce secretary Penny Pritzker that led Ukraine to agree to the structural adjustment program of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for two $1 billion loan guarantees from the Obama administration.^[6]…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The Oakland Institute report compares the generous financing of multinational corporations and local oligarchs with the inability of Ukrainian small farmers to access loans and their being displaced from their land and plunged into poverty. Some have migrated to the U.S. to seek farm work in the U.S. Midwest, sending remittances back home.^[9]

Mousseau and Devillers wrote that “the Partial Credit Guarantee Fund established by the World Bank to support small farmers is only US$5.4 million, a negligible amount compared to the billions channeled to large agribusinesses.”  https://jeremykuzmarov.substack.com/p/us-corporate-land-grab-in-ukraine?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2091638&post_id=153373724&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1r1sdz&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

December 21, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Ukraine