As winter approaches, promising to be one of the harshest in recent years, the Verkhovna Rada has decided to adopt bill №9665, which criminalizes the storage of firewood without documentation. While the intention seems noble—combatting illegal logging and aligning legislation with European standards—the law has proven to be, to put it mildly, unsuccessful in practice.
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SubscribeWhat new regulations does this law introduce? Firstly, there are now fines for the transportation, storage, and sale of wood without documentation ranging from 510 to 5100 UAH, and if you are caught again within a year, the fines escalate to 1360 to 15300 UAH. And this is just for an administrative offense!
This information became known thanks to the Center for Legislative Research of Ukraine.
The issue is that in villages, where firewood is purchased for heating, no one usually issues any documents. Firewood is delivered, you pay, and that’s it—no receipts or confirmations. If, for example, you harvested firewood from your own plot, you also risk receiving a fine for "storing wood."
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It would make sense to penalize only the sale of wood without documentation, but it seems the lawmakers did not reach such a straightforward conclusion. Now officials have the opportunity to report on their fight against illegal logging simply by drafting protocols against local residents—there’s bound to be wood in every village.
But that's not all! The bill also introduces criminal liability. If you transport or store wood without documentation in "significant amounts," you could face a fine of 34,000 UAH or even a prison sentence of up to 3 years. If this occurs again or is done by a group, the fine could reach 170,000 UAH, and the sentence could be up to 7 years.
"Significant" amounts refer to wood valued at more than 30,280 UAH, which is quite easy to reach if you have firewood for heating.
For reference, in the Khmelnytskyi region, prices for firewood range from 913 UAH for uncut and unseasoned wood to 2649 UAH for cut and seasoned wood. So, when gathering firewood for winter, don’t forget to check if you have the necessary documents; otherwise, heating might cost you more than you anticipated!