When Kurt Groszhans set out from North Dakota for Ukraine in 2017, he was eager to connect with his family's ancestral homeland and to farm the rich, black soil for which the country is known.
But his farming venture with a law professor who's now a high-ranking Ukrainian government official soon collapsed in acrimony and accusations, culminating in his arrest last November on charges of plotting to assassinate his former business partner. His family and supporters say the accusations are bogus and designed to silence Groszhan's claims of corruption in Ukraine, a country pulled between Russian and Western interests and straining to shed its reputation for graft and cronyism.
