Servant of the People denies that ordinary Ukrainians will be put behind bars for storing firewood

Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement, MP from the Servant of the People faction Maksym Pavliuk assures that his law on the introduction of criminal liability for the storage of wood without documents will not affect ordinary citizens.

His position was published by the spokeswoman of the monomajority faction, Yulia Paliichuk, on her Telegram channel, the Ukrainian News agency reports.

"There have been reports in some mass media that supposedly the norms of the voted bill prohibit the population from storing firewood at home for their own use without supporting documents. Such reports are completely untrue and are not just an arbitrary interpretation of the voted norms, but an outright lie," the MP said.

According to him, the voted bill concerns "black loggers", illegal sawmills, but not at all the population that is heated with firewood.

Pavliuk assures that the law is designed to stop illegal felling and in no way applies to wood of domestic volume, namely - 30 cubic meters of pine wood, or 15 cubic meters of oak wood.

"In other words, a person bears no responsibility for storing 30 cubic meters of pine wood or 15 cubic meters of oak wood. This is the volume that a household needs for the heating season, and even some with a reserve," noted Maksym Pavliuk.

He added that in order to incur criminal liability, it is necessary to store more than UAH 30,000, and this, according to DrovaE, is 30 cubic meters of pine wood, or 15 cubic meters oak wood.

"But even if someone, understanding the complexity of the situation and the uncertainty in the energy industry, has prepared more than 15 cubic meters of oak wood or 30 cubic meters of pine wood for this winter, there is no reason for them to worry. The law does not have retroactive effect in time, so the state authorities, in particular, the police do not have the right to demand documents for existing wood, which was purchased before the law came into force," Pavliuk said.

He emphasized that the provisions of this part of the law will not come into effect before the start of preparations for the next heating season.

As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, the Verkhovna Rada introduced criminal liability for storing wood without documents.