SBI investigates 587 forestry violations with damages over UAH 1 bln
Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) is investigating 587 criminal proceedings related to violations in the forestry sector: a significant part of them concern the activities of officials of the central office of the state enterprise Forests of Ukraine and its branches, SBI Director Oleksiy Sukhachev has said.
In a comment to Interfax-Ukraine, he specified that in 2023–2025, 178 indictments against 298 people have already been submitted to the court. "The total amount of damage caused in these criminal proceedings is over UAH 1 billion," the SBI Director said.
"The nature of the detected violations, their geography and number indicate not isolated incidents, but the presence of signs of a centralized, vertically organized system of abuse," Sukhachev noted.
He added: "Our goal is to stop the theft of national wealth. Ukrainian forests are not a source of illegal enrichment for the chosen ones." According to Sukhachev, the main violations in this area are the transfer of enterprise property to affiliated companies at undervalued prices, the conclusion of direct contracts for billions [of hryvnias] without open procedures, abuse during auctions for the sale of forest products, as well as illegal sanitary felling without relevant conclusions on the impact on the environment.