A local trader from Ukraine’s Volyn region will stand trial over the illegal export of timber to Poland through the Yahodyn checkpoint, with detectives seizing financial documents, electronic storage media, lumber, a tractor unit, and a semi-trailer, all worth thousands of euros. That is according to the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine (ESBU), which yesterday announced 6 that detectives had completed the pre-trial investigation and lodged the indictment with the court, charging the suspect under Part 1 of Article 201-1 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code.
Wood Central understands that the wood was purchased for cash from individuals and sole proprietors before being staged for export from the Kamin-Kashyrskyi and Kovel districts of the Volyn region, with certificates of origin, waybills, and invoices presented to customs officials containing falsified information. Searches conducted at the Yahodyn checkpoint and at the suspects’ residences yielded the seized lumber and hardware, along with seals, rough notes, and electronic devices used to coordinate the operation.
The Kovel district carries a distinct profile in cross-border timber investigations, with ESBU on its official Volyn channel describing the case as “timber mafia” activity and Wood Central reporting in 2024 that former Kovel City Council member Pavlo Semeniuk had been investigated over an alleged Belarusian pallet operation that pushed product into the European Union during the early stages of the full-scale invasion.
Under Article 201-1 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, the smuggling of timber, which is prohibited from export outside the country’s customs territory, working alongside the long-running roundwood export controls first imposed in November 2015 and added to the country’s penal code in 2018, with illegal exporters now facing up to ten years’ imprisonment under reforms that took effect in 2019.
The Volyn indictment surfaces against a backdrop of Polish-led tightening of timber inspections at the Ukrainian border, with Wood Central reporting that Ukrainian timber crossings into Poland had collapsed by 94 per cent year on year as Warsaw demanded GPS coordinates and electronic consignment notes from Ukrainian shippers ahead of European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) enforcement. WWF-Ukraine has previously identified the timber industry as the country’s third-most corrupt sector, with 62,000 cubic metres of allegedly illegal timber entering EU markets in 2023 alone.
