Drug markets in Ukraine and neighbouring countries have shifted away from opiates towards synthetic drugs since the outbreak of the war.

• Countries neighbouring Ukraine have seen a decline in heroin and opium seizures alongside an increase in ATS and NPS (notably synthetic cathinones) seizures in recent years – these trends have been even more pronounced within Ukraine.
• In Ukraine, aggregated significant individual drug seizures (excluding cannabis) showed a clear decline following the 2022 invasion but showed signs of recovery by 2024.
• The recovery of trafficking is also partly reflected in ESPAD data on the use of drugs among 15–16-year-old students. The use of drugs other than cannabis more than doubled in Ukraine, from 3.0 per cent in 2019 to 7.1 per cent in 2024 (life-time prevalence) while for Europe as a whole the average remained basically unchanged (4.8 per cent).
• The composition of drug seizures in Ukraine (excluding cannabis) changed substantially, with heroin and opium losing importance (as well as cocaine) and ATS and NPS – especially synthetic cathinones – becoming dominant in recent years (2022-2025).
• Seizures of synthetic cathinones (both under international control and not under international control) have expanded rapidly in Ukraine, increasing almost 30-fold between 2018–2021 and 2022–2025. The seized quantity of phenethylamines, in contrast, declined by more than 80 per cent during the same period. This potentially reflects the fact that synthetic cathinones can be synthesized from a broader range of precursor chemicals which are often not yet controlled, while phenethylamines are more reliant on international transportation networks (disrupted by the war) for the provision of precursor chemicals.