Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Law enforcement officers have notified 12 officials of SE "Forests of Ukraine" of suspicion in a case about the sale of timber at undervalued prices. StopCor is finding out exactly who appears in the case and what is known about the suspects.
StopCor has already reported that law enforcement exposed a scheme through which SE "Forests of Ukraine", according to preliminary data, suffered more than 6,9 million UAH in losses. The case involves officials of the Forest Office and former heads of ten forestry districts. In total there are 12 suspects.
Who are they? Our editorial team decided to figure it out.
What is known officially? The State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) and the National Police notified 12 officials of SE "Forests of Ukraine" and forestry enterprises of the Volyn and Rivne regions of suspicion as part of the special operation "Green Shield."
"Green Shield" is a large-scale special operation of the State Bureau of Investigations, launched in October 2026 together with the National Police and the Office of the Prosecutor General. It is aimed at combating illegal logging and corruption in the forestry sector. Main areas of inquiry: cutting down healthy trees under the guise of sanitary felling, selling timber at undervalued prices, reusing documents for timber transport, fictitious employment, and embezzlement of funds from state enterprises.
Ten suspects are accused of abuse of office by prior collusion of a group of persons, which caused grave consequences (part 2 of art. 28, part 2 of art. 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Two others are accused of abuse of office that caused significant damage (part 2 of art. 28, part 1 of art. 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, investigators have applied to the court for pretrial detention of the suspects.
Law enforcement agencies do not disclose the specific names and surnames of the suspects in their official statements, citing the presumption of innocence and the secrecy of the investigation.
At the same time, the State Bureau of Investigations and the Office of the Prosecutor General clarified which positions were held by all 12 persons who were notified of suspicion. Among them:
Head of the sales department of one of the forestry offices of SE "Forests of Ukraine" (Polissia Forest Office).
Chief specialist of the sales department of the same forestry office.
10 former heads of forestry districts in the Volyn and Rivne regions who, according to the investigation's version, directly signed illegal additional agreements.
According to the National Police, at the time the suspicions were notified, eight of the ten former heads of forestry districts were already working in other positions within the enterprise’s structure. At the same time, four suspects were detained in procedural order.
Note that since 1 July 2026 SE "Forests of Ukraine" has been led in an acting capacity by Ihor Zubovych. The Polissia Forest Office of SE "Forests of Ukraine" is headed by Vitalii Koshmak.
To find out exactly who the suspects are and what stage the investigation is currently at, StopCor's editorial team sent formal requests to law enforcement agencies (SBI, National Police, and the Office of the Prosecutor General). We are awaiting responses and are already preparing our own analytical investigation on each of the 12 suspects.
We also urge anyone who knows about possible schemes in forestry offices to report to us via social media and through the chat-bot.
Recall,
the heads of the state enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" in 2025 received a total of nearly 92 million UAH that year. The largest payments, according to the data cited in the post, were received by Ihor Lytsoor — 18 million 543 thousand UAH.
The total amount of payments to six managers, according to the cited data, is about 92 million UAH for the year.
multi-million shadow schemes, an optimistic "Excel plan" for $50 million in cash every month, and a series of high-profile personnel reshuffles — is a new anti-corruption detective unfolding in Ukraine's forestry sector? At the center of a story that could become the forestry "Carthage" are the names of senior officials and top managers in the sector, among them — Taras Vysotskyi, Ihor Zubovych, and Viktor Smal.
Prosecutors of the Ivano-Frankivsk regional prosecutor's office together with SBI employees uncovered a scheme for illegal sale of unaccounted-for timber in Prykarpattia. Two employees of the Ivano-Frankivsk forestry district of the "Carpathian Forest Office" branch of SE "Forests of Ukraine" were notified of suspicion.
According to the investigation, the scheme involved a 35-year-old assistant to the branch head and a 51-year-old forester who was subordinate to him.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item ""12 друзів Оушена" з Полісся: у справі на майже 7 млн фігурують посадовці ДП "Ліси України" — хто вони?". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: StopKor.