Key Takeaways
- Ukraine banned the sale of flavored and aromatic additives for e-cigarettes from July 11, 2024.
- A Philip Morris Ukraine executive said the ban has not worked in practice because enforcement is lacking.
- He said nine out of ten shopping centers in Kyiv contain illegal vape shops.
- He said the parliament has adopted the necessary laws to combat the illegal tobacco market, but some rules are poorly enforced or not enforced at all.
- He also said he hopes international partners’ demands will shift more attention toward entities that do not pay taxes.
2Firsts, March 17, 2026
According to Interfax-Ukraine, Mikhail Polyakov, deputy general director for corporate affairs at Philip Morris Ukraine, said that Ukraine’s ban on the sale of flavored and aromatic additives for e-cigarettes, introduced by the Verkhovna Rada from July 11, 2024, has not worked in practice, as experts had warned, because no one is controlling compliance with the ban.
Speaking at the European integration-focused “Dialogues with NV” event held last week, Mikhail Polyakov said that nine out of ten shopping centers in Kyiv contain illegal vape shops. He said the question is whether law-enforcement bodies and supervisory authorities do not know about this situation or whether they do know about it.
In his view, by adopting such a law, parliament effectively assumed the obligation to ban flavored and aromatic additives in e-cigarettes, but that obligation failed because there is no enforcement at the local level to ensure compliance with the rules.
He said there is no point in making decisions about bans if no one can control them. He also said they found only one shopping center in the city center that did not have an illegal vape kiosk.
Mikhail Polyakov stressed that in the tobacco industry, parliament has adopted all the necessary legislative acts that should have combated the illegal market, but in practice these rules either work poorly or do not work at all because there is no force to apply them.
He gave examples of how legislative norms are being bypassed. He said there are tax posts and video surveillance at tobacco factories, but the system was circumvented by opening workshops three kilometers away where there are no such posts and no surveillance. He also said that after a minimum cigarette price was introduced because taxes account for more than 70% of the price, some market participants began printing prices from an earlier year on packs, when the minimum price did not yet apply, and presenting the products as if they had been manufactured several years ago.
He said he hopes that, with the help of requirements from international partners such as the International Monetary Fund, the issue of increasing budget revenue mobilisation will ultimately focus on those who do not pay taxes, while those who do pay taxes will not be prevented from continuing to do so.
Image source: Interfax-Ukraine
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