Military land for harvest: court investigates how training ranges in Mykolaiv region were turned into fields

Judge of the Commercial Court of the city of Kyiv Roman Boiko drew the attention of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Ministry of Defense to a systemic problem with the use of defense lands for growing agricultural crops. This concerns, in particular, the lands of military training grounds in the Mykolaiv region, among them “Shyrokyi Lan” and the Kyivo-Oleksandrivskyi aviation training ground. The court issued a separate ruling on 10 August 2026 in case No. 910/8859/26.

The dispute concerned ownership rights to the harvest grown in 2025–2026 on two land plots with a total area of more than 4.2 thousand hectares. The plaintiff was the peasant farming enterprise “Voloshchakevych”, and the defendants were the Housing and Maintenance Department of the city of Mykolaiv and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

During examination of the case materials the court concluded that the problem goes far beyond a single commercial dispute. Defense lands had for years been transferred to entrepreneurs for cultivation of agricultural crops through so-called joint land cultivation agreements. The court noted that in essence such arrangements could conceal actual rental relations: entrepreneurs paid a fixed sum, the harvest remained with them, and there was no full distribution of the results of joint activity between the parties. Users were designated without competitive procedures.

The scale of use of military lands turned out to be significant. According to the data cited by the court, already in 2016 just within the boundaries of the “Shyrokyi Lan” and Kyivo-Oleksandrivskyi aviation training ground more than 15.6 thousand hectares were transferred for cultivation of agricultural crops. As of December 2021, under similar schemes across Ukraine more than 41,786 hectares of defense lands were being used.

Although the problem had been known for many years and individual agreements had already become the subject of court disputes, this did not always stop the actual use of military lands. According to the court, a significant portion of plots transferred as early as 2016 continued to be used until the end of 2025, and harvests on them were collected even in 2026.

Separately, the court analyzed the financial side of using the two plots that were the immediate subject of the dispute. Their area amounts to 1,467.81 ha and 2,810.85 ha. In 2018 the cost of land use amounted to 2,290 hryvnias per hectare per year, and in 2025 – 2,967 hryvnias per hectare.

For comparison, the court used the results of land auctions in the Mykolaiv region for 2025. In competitive bidding the right to use similar state agricultural lands cost approximately 12–16 thousand hryvnias per hectare. That is, the difference compared with the agreements on defense lands could be several times higher.

If such a difference is applied to roughly 41 thousand hectares of defense lands that were used under similar agreements, the court estimated the potential revenues not received by the state at approximately 400 million hryvnias per year. This figure became one of the most notable findings of the separate ruling.

One of the reasons for the long-term situation, the court said, was the absence of a government procedure that should regulate the use of defense lands for economic purposes. The Law of Ukraine “On the Use of Defense Lands” has been in force since 2003, however the court pointed to more than 22 years of government inaction regarding approval of the envisaged mechanism.

For this reason the separate ruling was sent to the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. The government is expected to adopt a systemic decision on whether and under what conditions defense lands can be transferred for economic activity, as well as to regulate the issue of land tax under martial law. According to the court, transparent rules should end the practice of non-competitive use of such plots and reduce the number of similar court disputes.

Some requirements of the court were addressed to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. The Ministry was urged to conduct an audit and inventory of defense lands that were previously transferred or are still being used by third parties, to stop illegal use and to secure the release of the respective plots. In addition, the matter concerns identifying those responsible, their liability, and the recovery of damages and revenues that the Ministry of Defense may have been deprived of.

The Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Defense must, within three months after receiving the separate ruling, inform the court about measures already taken or planned. The ruling entered into force on 10 August 2026 and may be appealed within 10 days.

The training ground “Shyrokyi Lan” is located in the Stepivska community of Mykolaiv Oblast. The issue of using its territory for agribusiness has arisen before. Already in 2023 law enforcement reported about the head of a farm who was suspected of unauthorized occupation of 400 ha of military training ground. According to the investigation, he offered an SBU officer 1 million hryvnias to secure the removal of the arrest from the land and to harvest without hindrance.

Previously we wrote:

• A million for harvesting on a Ukrainian Armed Forces training ground: in the Mykolaiv region a farmer tried to bribe an SBU officer
• “Merikov should leave the governor’s post, it will benefit the Mykolaiv region,” – MP Vadatursky is convinced
• Court saga continues: the review of the bribery case of former Mykolaiv ODA official Romanchuk is being resumed