"The head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Oleg Syniehubov, said that if a company can supply wood, he does not care that the company was registered 5 minutes ago. I think we can conclude that in this way they are actually trying to legalize some similar transactions in the future. That is, it does not matter who the owner is when the company is registered. The official answer was that companies for the supply of timber were selected according to the KVED (classification of economic activities) and made sure that they had no ties to Russia, Belarus, or court proceedings", commented Martyna Boguslavets.

According to her, if we choose by KVED, there are about 35 thousand individual entrepreneurs and companies engaged in the supply of wood in Ukraine.

"It is very strange that out of 35 thousand companies in Ukraine, 6 companies were selected that have questions about the corruption component and the fact that there are signs of fictitiousness. Perhaps the owners of the firms do not even know that they are registered as such, and that their company has been awarded millions of dollars worth of contracts totaling 300 million hryvnias for the supply of wood for the construction of fortifications. But, as we can see, this is not a problem for the Kharkiv authorities", noted Martyna.

Bohuslavets added that the Anti-Corruption Center "Mezha" appealed to the NABU to check the corruption component in the selection of companies for the supply of wood.

"As for the figures, the total amount of contracts for the supply of wood for the construction of fortifications is UAH 471 million 317 thousand. It is interesting that 6 companies and one individual entrepreneur signed a contract for UAH 366 million, and forestry enterprises for only UAH 100 million. In fact, only ¼ of all contracts were signed with forestry enterprises, and ¾ were signed with these firms. At the briefing, they tried to explain that forestry enterprises were not able to provide timber so quickly. And 6 companies that registered in a few months had such capabilities. Accordingly, there are a lot of questions here, because a company with signs of fictitiousness is often used as a gasket, which is not a fact that it really supplies something, but is used to withdraw funds," explained the head of the AC.

• On May 12, the head of the State Special Transport Service, Oleksandr Yakovets, said that the fortification of defensive structures in the Kharkiv region is carried out in several areas.
• The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that in 2024, engineering and demining units of the Ukrainian Support Forces planted tens of thousands of mines in the Kharkiv region.
• On May 14, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, Oleh Syniehubov, told the VOA  BBC in an interview that the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration was responsible for the third and partially the second line of defense in the region