Yevhen Plinsky, a well-known investigative journalist and telethon host, has highlighted the serious economic losses to Ukraine's budget resulting from the illegal tobacco trade. According to his calculations, these losses amount to approximately 23 billion hryvnias annually.
Plinsky noted that all major studies conducted by various centers, including Kantar-Ukraine, the Economic Expert Platform, as well as studies commissioned by anti-tobacco organizations, indicate similar figures for losses due to the illegal tobacco market.
Plinsky mentioned that two studies – Kantar-Ukraine and the Economic Expert Platform – showed that about 23-25% of the Ukrainian tobacco market is in the shadows.
At the same time, a study by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) commissioned by the anti-tobacco public organization “Life” showed a slightly lower level of the illegal market – about 13%.
According to Plinsky, this can be explained by the difference in the methodology of the conducted studies. “Here we need to look at it technically – at the difference in the methodology by which the studies were conducted. In addition to the studies by Kantar-Ukraine and KIIS, there is also a study by the “Economic Expert Platform”, according to which the indicator of illegal trade in tobacco products is about 23%. Therefore, we can take the average indicator and agree that the level of the illegal tobacco market in Ukraine is 20-23%. And such an indicator will be objective and real,” Plinsky said.
He added that all studies had the same estimates of budget losses – about UAH 23 billion. “This figure was announced, in particular, by the Finance Committee of Parliament, and its leaders, MPs Danylo Hetmantsev and Yaroslav Zheleznyak, spoke about it. That is, the volume of the illegal market has really grown significantly – from about 5% in 2019 to 20-23% now,” Plinsky explained the trend.
As noted, according to a report by the auditing company KPMG, Ukraine is the second largest market in Europe in terms of illegal cigarette trade, second only to France.
According to the latest Kantar study, the level of the illegal cigarette market in Ukraine reached 25.7% in 2023 (as of October). Back in June 2023, this figure was 19.5%. This percentage of the shadow is an absolute record in the entire history of Kantar's study of the illegal cigarette trade in Ukraine, starting in 2011.
