Black Earth And The Struggle For Ukraine’s Future

The Barricade

The Ukrainian crisis can be viewed as being composed of several interconnected factors from the civil war, to rampant corruption and the wider geopolitical ramifications of American and Russian confrontation. Another relatively overlooked factor is the ongoing conflict over Ukraine’s natural resources. Of particular interest to transnational corporations and their puppet Ukrainian oligarchs is the ‘black earth’ of Ukraine. Black earth or ‘Chernozerm’  is found in two major zones on earth, one of these encompasses sections of Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Black earth is characterized by its very high fertility and consequently its capacity for producing a high agricultural output.

A scientist examines chernozerm in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. ( Image credit: Saghnol, wikimedia commons)

International corporations have long been utilizing loopholes and political lobbying in order to overturn a Ukrainian  moratorium on land sales to foreigners. By leasing numerous parcels of land these companies anticipate the Ukrainian government’s desperation for money and EU obligations

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Black Earth and the Struggle for Ukraine’s Future

SLAVYANGRAD.org

Preamble: We are delighted to introduce Andrey Panevin, who will be joining Slavyangrad as a regular contributor of original (and undeniably unique) analytical perspectives to Slavyangrad.org. The article below is a vivid example of his strengths as an investigative journalist. We have been following Andrey for many months, and, when the decision was made to increase the ambit of the publication beyond our bread and butter of translations and the occasional dry piece of legal analysis from Gleb Bazov, the choice was obvious. Andrey has previously been published on Russia Insider and by MintPress—one of the pioneers in citizen journalism. We also encourage you to pay close attention to Andrey’s own blog, The Barricade, although we hope that you will see him on Slavyangrad.org almost as frequently. The present article deals with an issue he has already covered. We encourage readers to take a look at that article as it…

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