Position: General Director of the State Enterprise Forests of Ukraine.
Sphere of corruption: natural resources.
Region of corruption activity: all of Ukraine.
Qualification: Article 368-5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal enrichment, punishable by imprisonment for a term of 5 to 10 years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for a term of up to 3 years).
Status: detention with the alternative of posting bail of UAH 90.9 million.
The plot of the case: Yuriy Bolokhovets, the general director of the state-owned enterprise Forests of Ukraine, was suspected of illegal enrichment.
According to the investigation, a category A civil servant, while serving as the head of the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine, acquired assets worth over UAH 10.4 million in 2021, which significantly exceeds his legal income, the Prosecutor General's Office reported. It is alleged that among the official's assets not confirmed by declared income, there is an apartment in Kyiv worth over UAH 9 million, which was registered to a controlled entity and was actually used by the suspect, as well as eight land plots with a total area of 24 hectares. The difference between the acquired assets and official income during the specified period exceeds UAH 7.9 million, the report says.
The General Director of the State Enterprise Forests of Ukraine is Yuriy Bolokhovets. He headed the State Agency of Forest Resources from February 2021 to May 2023. Since May 2023, he has held his current position (until October 2023 in the status of acting). The pre-trial investigation is carried out by the Main Investigative Department of the State Bureau of Investigation with operational support from the Main Operational Department of the State Bureau of Investigation.
The official was detained and informed of suspicion under Article 368-5 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal enrichment, punishable by imprisonment for a term of 5 to 10 years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for a term of up to 3 years).
Bolokhovets himself wrote on Facebook about the suspicion: "I have commented on the issue of the apartment that my family rents many times. The owner of the apartment is an entrepreneur. As of 2021, he had more than enough official income to purchase real estate. The owner of the apartment owns more than one real estate object and rents them out. The apartment is rented by my wife at market value, information about the rent has always been entered in the income declaration."
Later, the court chose a preventive measure for Bolokhovets in the form of detention with the alternative of posting bail in the amount of UAH 90.9 million.
Persons potentially involved in corruption schemes: being identified.
Assets: Yuriy Bolokhovets, CEO of the state-owned enterprise "Forests of Ukraine", declared an annual income of over 6.6 million hryvnias, received from wages. According to the declaration, Bolokhovets received 6,649,507 hryvnias in salary for the year, which is over 554 thousand per month. In addition, he received income from securities in the amount of almost 257 thousand hryvnias and insurance payments of 46.8 thousand hryvnias.
Bolokhovets' wife Lyudmila declared over a million hryvnias from entrepreneurial activities, 222 thousand hryvnias in salary and over 2.56 million hryvnias in dividends. Bolokhovets indicated in his declaration cash assets of over 2 million hryvnias, which are stored in a PrivatBank account. In addition, he owns government bonds worth over 2.2 million hryvnias.
He keeps 35 thousand dollars and 15 thousand euros in cash (joint ownership with his wife). Separately, 3.8 million UAH is kept in his wife's accounts. According to the specified data of the declaration, Bolokhovets does not own any real estate. He owns the rights to use a house and a land plot in the Chernihiv region, as well as an apartment in Kyiv, which his wife rents.
His wife owns an apartment in Chernihiv region, 13 land plots, and two non-residential premises. Bolokhovets uses a 2019 Toyota, which belongs to his wife. She also owns a 2021 truck and uses a 2022 Lexus for her company.
Persons who should have reacted: in the case of Bolokhovets, law enforcement officers reacted.
Scandals: On July 21, 2025, the State Bureau of Investigation handed Yuriy Bolokhovets, the general director of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine", a suspicion of illegal enrichment of more than 7 million 900 thousand hryvnias. According to the investigation, in 2021 alone, the official "acquired" an elite apartment in Kyiv for 10 million hryvnias, a truck, land plots, and kept so much cash that the branches were bending. When the official salary of a state top official does not allow you to buy an apartment in Pechersk, but dreams remain - creativity comes into play. Formally, a close friend became the buyer of the apartment for 9 million hryvnias. In fact, all the steps - from choosing housing to negotiating with the seller and concluding a deal - were carried out by Bolokhovets' wife. She made the payment, but, of course, on behalf of the official owner.
Bolokhovets responded briefly to all the accusations on his social media: they say the apartment is not his, but that of an entrepreneur who owns more than one property and has been renting out housing for a long time. The official's family allegedly officially rents this housing at market prices and everything is included in the declaration. That is, nothing personal, just everyday life.
Forests of Ukraine supports Bolokhovets: they say the investigation is based on assumptions, and the searches did not reveal any violations. Moreover, according to their logic, the situation is a direct consequence of the principled nature of the leader, who broke corruption schemes and de-integrated the industry.
However, against the backdrop of this version, another story emerges very untimely - about a farm in the middle of a forest with an area of over 80 hectares.
In the Chernihiv region, near the village of Ivangorod, where the CEO of "Lisy Ukrainy" comes from, there is a private estate that locals confidently call "Bolokhovets' farm". According to the documents, everything is registered in the names of relatives, acquaintances and business partners, the head of the State Enterprise "Lisy Ukrainy" himself allegedly has no connection to the land. And behind the fence are lakes, enclosures, stables, a forest and surveillance cameras at every step.
Most of the territory, as colleagues from NGL.media have established, is state and communal forests.
Some of the plots are privatized, some are leased, and others are seized. In 2023, a typical scheme was used to legalize part of the land: a children's sports and educational club was registered, an application was submitted to the regional council, and the latter allocated 2.5 hectares of forest for the camp. But no one ever saw the camp.
In general, in the forest, as in life: sometimes it's better to be not an oak tree, but a flexible birch branch. Like Tamara Tretyak, a fellow villager of Bolokhovets from Ivangorod, a lawyer who has handled more than one deal to purchase land plots for the Bolokhovets family. And who at one point decided that her true calling is logging.
In 2016, she opened an individual entrepreneur with exactly this profile. And from the following year, she consistently won tenders at the state enterprise "Nizhyn Forestry", which was then headed by Yuriy Bolokhovets. Over five years, Tretyak received contracts worth almost 33 million hryvnias. More than 40% of them were during Bolokhovets' time. The rest were when his godfather Andriy Danko headed the forestry.
In short, Bolokhovets always had his people by his side — on the ground, at tenders, in offices. And one of them was his longtime associate and unofficial "cash register" in the forest system, Oleksandr Kvatyrko.
At the same time, the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" says that "Yuriy Bolokhovets is not the owner of land plots or other property on the territory of the Derkachi farm in the village of Ivangorod." "All of Yuriy Bolokhovets' property is indicated in the declaration," the report says. In 2024, Kvatyrko became a defendant in criminal proceedings - he is accused of illegal enrichment of almost 10 million UAH. According to the investigation, he has property at his disposal, the value of which does not correspond to official income. We are talking about houses, apartments, luxury cars, cash.
But this is far from Kvatyrko's first violation during his career in "Lisy". Illegal hunting in the reserve, numerous investigations by the State Bureau of Investigation into deforestation in Volyn, a 245 sq. m estate, the access to which is illegally fenced off with a barrier, millions of dollars in cash with his deputy, a salary several times higher than the presidential salary - in general, Kvatyrko has distinguished himself with quite high-profile actions during his years of civil service.
Until recently, he held the position of Operations Director of the State Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine", and before that, he headed the Volyn Regional Department of Forestry and Hunting for 7 years. Despite scandals and criminal cases, it was during Bolokhovets' time that he was promoted, and recently he unexpectedly resigned.
He was released at the very moment when the investigation began to tighten around his boss. Coincidence? Maybe. But considering everything we saw, it looks more like a well-thought-out ending to one story. Or just the beginning of another, criminal one — the statute of limitations on corruption articles may keep Kvatyrka in suspense for many more years.
One is a suspect, another has disappeared from office, a third has won tenders worth tens of millions. And the state-owned enterprise that was supposed to protect Ukrainian forests has turned into a private comfort zone with fences, cameras, and impunity.
But the forest is a living thing. It remembers who left a trace and where. And if today in this plot the finale has appeared for one person involved, then for others - everything is just beginning. And while in "Forests of Ukraine" they assure that everything is legal, in my opinion, for a simple forest story there are too many hares running in one direction.
Sources:
https://public.nazk.gov.ua/documents/303cb298-2f60-4ea2-b0e4-176406f469f8