While U.S. President Joe Biden was assuring Ukrainian President Zelenskyy of total U.S. support against Russia in their Jan. 2 call, an American citizen, Kurt Groszhans, has been jailed in Ukraine reportedly at the behest of Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Roman Leshchenko. Yet Biden, whose strong concerns about official corruption in Ukraine have been registered many times in the past, does not appear to have brought up Groszhans’ case.
While the case certainly cannot be settled in this report, it seems clear that Groszhans, a North Dakota farmer who came to Ukraine in 2018 to grow crops and hired Leshchenko to direct his business, brought suit against Leshchenko in a dispute of partners, hoping for a case in American courts. And according to the Kyiv Post of Jan. 28, 2021, Leshchenko, having just then become Agriculture Minister, “said that the American ... has committed a much worse crime and he will see him jailed for it.” Subsequently, that is exactly what happened: Groszhans was jailed in Ukraine in mid-November 2021. His sisters in North Dakota have had no communication from him since then, and have gone to the state’s U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer and John Hoeven. He has no lawyer and the U.S. Embassy is apparently getting to see him only every 60 days. Yet the White House readout of Biden’s call to Zelenskyy said nothing about any inquiry about Groszhans, by name or implication.
