Ukraine's forensic document experts take their place among Europe's best

During September and October 2026, the OSCE Transnational Threats Department funded the participation of forensic document experts from the Main Forensic Centre (MFC) of Ukraine's State Border Guard Service in three consecutive international forums, each representing a different facet of the MFC's growing role in the European forensic landscape.

In October 2025, at the 24th European Document Experts Working Group (EDEWG) Business Meeting in Kraków, Poland, MFC representatives presented their institution's structure, operational procedures and key achievements to representatives of some of the leading forensic laboratories in Europe. At the end of that meeting, EDEWG members voted to grant the MFC associate membership, marking an important milestone in the MFC’s integration into the European forensic science community. This milestone followed years of sustained OSCE support. Over the past month, MFC experts returned to the international stage, this time not only as participants but also as contributors.

The sequence opened from 9 to 10 September in Riga, Latvia, where two MFC experts joined the Baltic Sea Region Border Control Co-operation (BSRBCC) Document Experts Seminar, organized under the State Border Guard of Latvia’s BSRBCC Presidency. The seminar brought together forensic document specialists from Baltic Sea and Nordic States, the community within which Ukraine has been systematically building ties since the OSCE began facilitating its participation in 2025. Alongside national situation presentations from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Sweden, MFC experts delivered Ukraine's national presentation on document fraud at its borders.  

Three weeks later, from 29 to 30 September in Tallinn, Estonia, the relationship between Ukrainian and Estonian forensic communities deepened further, this time through a bilateral workshop on document and identity control hosted at the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences. Two MFC experts opened the programme with a session on the structure and organization of forensic document examination in Ukraine, current trends in document fraud affecting its borders, and the characteristics of high-quality counterfeits, stolen blank documents and fraudulent breeder documents drawn from active casework in Ukraine. On the second day, Estonian counterparts shared insights into the situation at their borders, the EU’s Entry/Exit System and European Travel Information and Authorisation System, and the latest generation of Estonian identity documents.

The third event brought the MFC to Lisbon, Portugal, for a joint meeting of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes, European Network of Forensic Handwriting Experts (ENFHEX) and EDEWG, held from 29 September to 2 October at the Forensic Science Laboratory of the Judiciary Police. The meeting, themed One Evidence, Two Disciplines: Reuniting Forensic Handwriting and Document Examination, gathered ENFHEX and EDEWG full and associate members from across Europe. A year after being granted EDEWG associate membership, the MFC experts joined working sessions alongside their European counterparts.

Colonel Olena Bachuk, Chief of the MFC, who attended the Lisbon meeting, reflected on the significance of the three-week sequence: “Three events, three countries, different formats of professional interaction — yet the common objective remains unchanged: strengthening efforts to counter transnational crime and developing effective mechanisms for the detection, examination and documentation of document fraud. Today, forged documents are far more than a matter of illegal border crossing. They can serve as a tool for fraud, facilitation of irregular migration, financing unlawful activities, sabotage, and other crimes posing a threat to national and international security. The knowledge gained does not remain with those who participate in international events. We pass it on to border guards, who are often the first to encounter documents that may contain indications of forgery. Forensic expertise must directly support those working at the border, and their practical experience must in turn feed back into the forensic community.”

The three events held in September and October were funded through an ongoing OSCE extrabudgetary project supporting participating States and Partners for Co-operation in reducing illegal border crossings carried out using a fake or stolen identity. The project is funded by the United States and, through the Helsinki+50 Fund, by Finland, Germany and San Marino.