The prosecution authorities of the Kyiv region ensured the return of 59 hydraulic structures of fish farming ponds with a total area of over 25 thousand square meters, located on the Bobrytsia River in the Bucha and Fastiv districts.

This concerns property worth millions of hryvnias that was illegally removed from state ownership during the privatization processes of the 1990s.

In the late 1990s, during the privatization of one of the state fish farming enterprises, 30 ponds, including water bodies in the villages of Zabirya and Bobrytsia, were illegally included in the charter capital of the newly established company.

These facilities had been state-owned since the 1960s-1970s and were used for fish breeding.

After the intervention of the prosecution in 2013, the economic court recognized the privatization as illegal and ordered the return of the ponds with hydraulic structures to the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

In 2018, a private notary re-registered the ownership rights to these facilities in the name of the successor of the company.

The dams, weirs, water intake and discharge structures, that is, hydraulic facilities that cannot be privately owned according to the law, were unjustifiably included in the property complexes.

Prosecutors from Kyiv region filed new lawsuits to stop the illegal re-registration of state property.

Courts of all instances, including the Supreme Court, supported the position of the prosecution: hydraulic structures are an integral part of water bodies and can only belong to the state.

Thanks to the persistent position of the prosecutors, the courts annulled the illegal registration, and 59 hydraulic structures of fish farming ponds were returned to state ownership.

Currently, the State Property Fund of Ukraine is accounting for them and determining the authority that will oversee the further maintenance and use of these facilities.