diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e4c86fa37..60a5d7d92 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ Changelog for FrostFS Node
 - Take network settings into account during netmap contract update (#100)
 - Read config files from dir even if config file not provided via `--config` for node (#238)
 - Notary requests parsing according to `neo-go`'s updates (#268)
+- Tree service panic in its internal client cache (#322)
 
 ### Removed
 ### Updated
diff --git a/pkg/services/tree/cache.go b/pkg/services/tree/cache.go
index ab9f509ac..56b97e687 100644
--- a/pkg/services/tree/cache.go
+++ b/pkg/services/tree/cache.go
@@ -36,7 +36,9 @@ var errRecentlyFailed = errors.New("client has recently failed")
 
 func (c *clientCache) init() {
 	l, _ := simplelru.NewLRU[string, cacheItem](defaultClientCacheSize, func(_ string, value cacheItem) {
-		_ = value.cc.Close()
+		if conn := value.cc; conn != nil {
+			_ = conn.Close()
+		}
 	})
 	c.LRU = *l
 }