In 2024, Transcarpathia became another example of how one of the richest natural industries brings crumbs to the budget, while shadow earnings are calculated in billions. According to official data, about 700 thousand cubic meters of forest were cut down in the region per year - this is approximately 400 thousand trees, a significant part of which was processed at more than 200 local sawmills and eventually sold abroad.
On paper, this seems to be economic activity, employment of the population and foreign exchange earnings. But the reality looks completely different. Despite the scale of logging, local budgets received only 17 million hryvnias. For comparison: two McDonald's restaurants, which are just about to open in Transcarpathia, will pay about 16 million in taxes - almost as much as the entire forestry industry of the region.
This imbalance exposes the absurdity of the system: a region where forests are the main natural resource, receives less from their exploitation than two public catering establishments. And this despite the fact that the forestry industry has the potential to become one of the main donors to the state budget. According to experts, Ukraine could receive up to 880 billion hryvnias in revenue every year, which is approximately equal to the cost of purchasing more than 600 F-16 fighters.
However, the real revenues look pathetic: in 2022, the forest gave the state only 23.3 billion hryvnias, and the rest of the funds — according to analysts, hundreds of billions — are settling in shadow schemes that have been controlled by “forest barons” for decades.
In 2022, the state created a single operator of the forest industry — SE "Forests of Ukraine", which included 158 forest enterprises and 9 regional offices. The idea of the central reform was to combat chaos, dispersed financial flows and corrupt practices. But in practice, the "reform" turned into a centralization of old schemes in new hands.
The head of the newly created enterprise was Yuriy Bolokhovets, who had previously been dismissed from the State Forestry Agency for financial violations. His appointment caused a stir right from the start — and for good reason. Instead of cleaning up the industry, the system received an administrator capable of bringing all the shady flows under one roof.
According to information from inside the system, it was during Bolokhovets' leadership that the forest finally became a commodity for corruption deals.
The basic schemes look like this:
– under the guise of sanitary felling, completely healthy trees are cut down;
– the wood is not sold directly, but through intermediary companies that artificially lower the real cost;
– after that, the wood “travels” through dozens of private sawmills, where volumes and income are legalized;
– the money earned is withdrawn through public procurement and manipulation of supply contracts.
The biggest profits are hidden in another direction - the supply of wood for defense structures. After the start of a full-scale war, prices skyrocketed, and wood was sold at rates that were many times higher than market rates. This is where the most money "settled" - not in community budgets, but in the pockets of forest business supervisors.
As a result, Transcarpathia is not just losing money — it is losing the opportunity to develop. Communities in whose territories mass logging is taking place are not receiving adequate compensation, infrastructure is not developing, and forest areas are degrading.
Instead, the same people who are “reforming” the industry are getting rich for decades. The centralization of forestry enterprises within the framework of “Forests of Ukraine” did not break the old schemes — it only enlarged them and made them even less transparent.
