Institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service have sharply reduced the volume of logging compared to the previous year – by 31%, RBC writes with reference to a study by the state forest accounting organization Roslesinforg. The main reasons in Rosselkhoz are sending prisoners to war and sanctions.
In general, the volume of timber harvesting in the industry decreased by 13.5%. Despite this, the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service are still among the largest loggers in Russia. But if in 2021 they took eighth place, then in 2022 they dropped to tenth from 1.27 million cubic meters of wood.
“The wards of the Federal Penitentiary Service are now actively involved in the implementation of strategic tasks to ensure the security of the state,” the Rosselkhoz statement explains. The department also believes that the volume of harvesting could be affected by a decrease in demand for timber due to sanctions.
Earlier, the owner of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed that about 50 thousand prisoners were recruited in total, 10 thousand of them died in the battles for Bakhmut. In February of this year, the Wagner PMC officially stopped recruiting prisoners, but it was reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense was doing it instead.
Last summer, the EU banned the import of Russian timber products. Russia, in turn, imposed a ban on the export of unprocessed roundwood, as well as on the supply of wood and raw materials for the production of paper and plywood to the so-called "unfriendly" countries.
The sanctions have affected the income of timber companies. On the eve of Vedomosti, they wrote that the timber holding Segezha Group in the first quarter of 2023 reduced its revenue to 18.7 billion rubles, which is 42% less compared to the same period last year.