The police opened a criminal investigation into the fact of illegal felling and theft of trees in the Beloozersky National Park in the Cherkasy region. The law enforcement officers recorded this offense together with the activists.
The Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center (KEKC) told about the details of the case.
According to information from the Unified Register of Pretrial Investigations, the police initiated a criminal case under Art. 15, Part 3 "Attempt to commit a criminal offence", Article 185, Part 4 "Theft committed in large quantities or in conditions of martial law or a state of emergency" of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The extract from the register also states that an unknown person loaded 6 felled pine logs and 2 maple logs onto a trailer for removal, but did not have time to cut them down, as outsiders intervened.
Photo: facebook.com/kekz.ua.
The KECC says that the "black loggers" turned out to be the workers of the Beloozersky National Nature Park themselves. In particular, they claim that they saw Ihor Popov, the master of nature protection of the park, commanding the fellers. When he saw the raiding group, he ran away, say ecoactivists.
According to environmentalists, intruders illegally cut down dozens of old pine trees in the district. 122 national park.
Activists also reminded that this is the second case of illegal felling of trees on the territory of the Belozersky National Nature Park exposed by KECC activists and the police in 2024.
As EcoPolitics wrote, illegal felling and removal of ancient oaks by specialists of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center recorded in May Then they noted that everything was happening professionally and assumed that it was either the work of a separate gang of foresters colluding with the park management, or the park management directly.
A month later, in June, KECC volunteers together with police investigators found in the reserve zone of the "Biloozerskyi" national park, 20 old oaks were felled.
Eco-activists say that after that, the Boryspil Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case based on this fact, and the director of the park got scared and resigned.
According to the KECC, the park is currently managed by the first deputy director Mykhailo Margitych, under whom illegal logging in the park continues.
