More than 25% of all funds allocated by the Polissya Forestry Office for forest maintenance in the first half of 2025 went to one family. Contracts worth approximately UAH 11 million were awarded to the mother and mother-in-law of Oksana Baran, who works in the forestry industry.
This was reported in a recent investigation by Sila Pravdy.
Contract maintenance
Young plantations need maintenance, and, according to foresters, there are not enough people in the industry to do this after the reorganization. Therefore, forestry enterprises are actively purchasing services from contractors.
According to its director, the Kivertsi Forestry has an area of 130,000 hectares. It was no exception — this spring, it purchased forest maintenance services. To evaluate them, they turned to three entrepreneurs, who, surprisingly, sent commercial offers with identical errors and a service cost of UAH 7,150,500.
Family and labor relations
Family and work relations
Won a contract worth over 7 million hryvnias Nadiya Kushnir is a 65-year-old pensioner who became an entrepreneur just days before applying to the forestry department. Even more interesting is the fact that the winner of the tender turned out to be the mother of Oksana Baran and Lesya Romanik.
Both women appeared in photographs of the Polissya Forestry Enterprise as its employees. According to the 2024 declaration, the former was the head of the economics, accounting, and finance department of the state-owned enterprise, while the latter was its leading engineer. Lesya Romanik told reporters that she left her job on January 1, 2025. However, this did not reduce the number of family members who are supported by the Ukrainian forest.
Photo: facebook.com/polisyalg
Another contract worth almost UAH 4 million from the Kivertsi Forestry in 2025 was awarded to Valentina Baran, Oksana Baran's mother-in-law, who, together with the official's mother, sent identical commercial proposals for previous purchases.
However, the women are not very knowledgeable about their businesses. According to Syla Pravdy, they are actually managed by Roman Baran, the husband of the state forestry official and also the son and son-in-law of the main contractors of the Kivertsi Forestry.
The article states that in 2014, Roman Baran was found guilty of embezzling and misappropriating money from the state-owned enterprise where his wife works, Polissya Forestry. He received funds for logging work, but did not perform any work.
Journalists tried to determine whether the work under the contract is currently being performed. According to Ivan Turevich, director of the Kivertsi Forestry, he is satisfied with the quality of services, although he is not personally acquainted with the winners of the procurement competition. Regarding family ties and conflicts of interest, he notes the following:
“I don’t understand why this should be considered a conflict of interest, because as far as I know, Oksana Baran works at the Manevychi Forestry Division, while Nadiya Kushnir provides services to another forestry division. Every family needs to make a living: someone works in the forestry division, someone is a vehicle driver, someone is a sole proprietor. Everyone has their own understanding of how to earn their daily bread.”
Corruption in Ukraine's forestry sector is now officially recognized as systemic. Read about the types of crimes, the staggering scale, and management abuses in the article by EcoPolitic.
