The Ukrainian parliament "received a letter of resignation from Mykola Solsky," the body's speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk, said on Facebook, posting a photo of the handwritten note.

"I ask you to accept my resignation from the post of Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food," the letter reads, a request that lawmakers will now have to accept or reject.

Several corruption scandals have erupted in Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, including within the military, but they have mostly involved lower-level officials.

Solsky confirmed in a statement released by his ministry that he had written the resignation letter, calling it "the right thing to do".

He added that he was ready to "continue working" if parliament rejects his resignation.

On Tuesday, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said it suspected Solsky of seizing public land worth an estimated $7.5 million (6.9 million euros) and of "attempting to seize" other land worth nearly $5 million (4.5 million euros).

To do so, it said he had acted in collusion with officials from the state registration service and the state cartography and cadastre service.

Between 2017 and 2021, they are suspected of seizing almost 2,500 hectares (6,178 acres) in the northeastern Sumy region, using a scheme that involved forging official documents.

According to his official biography, Solsky worked as a lawyer until 2019, when he was elected to parliament and appointed minister in March 2022.

The defendants also tried to seize a further 3,282 hectares of land, but were "prevented" from doing so by prosecutors and anti-corruption officers, NABU said.

The agriculture ministry released a response from Solsky to the accusations, in which he said that from 2017 to 2018 he had worked as a lawyer and not in a public role.

"I promise maximum transparency to establish the truth," he added, according to the ministry statement.

Tackling corruption, endemic in Ukraine, is a key condition set by the European Union for the country to join the bloc.

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