Against the backdrop of years of conflict and turmoil, Ukraine’s tobacco market remains highly active. Although the war is not over, smokers’ pace of life shows strong inertia. The latest survey shows that traditional cigarettes still dominate tobacco consumption among adults in Ukraine, with up to 69% of smokers still choosing burning cigarettes. This is a realistic reflection of social pressure, wartime anxiety and the confidence of tobacco culture.
In contrast, although electronic cigarettes (vape) and heated tobacco products (HTP) are showing a growth trend, their market share is small but cannot be ignored. Data shows that 23% of smokers choose heated tobacco products, 16% use electronic cigarettes, and in the younger age group (18-29 years old), 45% of users have used heated products, an increase of 8 percentage points over last year. This change reflects the quiet reconstruction of the tobacco market structure, especially in the context of wartime, consumers’ attention to alternatives and enthusiasm for purchasing are becoming more and more obvious.
The Ukrainian government did not relax its supervision of the tobacco market during the war. The Anti-Tobacco Law No. 1978, which was introduced at the end of 2021, has been fully implemented in 2023, including strict restrictions on e-cigarette and heated tobacco advertising, flavors, and packaging, and unified into the scope of smoking bans in public places, extending to e-cigarettes and HTP products.
The Ministry of Health also exempted tobacco regulatory inspections from the wartime moratorium, allowing law enforcement to continue. Under this mechanism, the government maintains a “public health”-oriented attitude while supporting attempts to include tobacco substitutes in regulated channels. Despite stricter regulation, due to the deep-rooted market, consumers are looking for a balance between compliance and real needs, resulting in a slow increase in the share of substitutes.
According to the research report, between 2019 and 2022, sales of heated tobacco products in Ukraine surged by 278%, while sales of traditional cigarettes continued to decline. Under the current economic and social pressures, many adult smokers regard them as transitional products that can replace burning cigarettes.
In terms of e-cigarettes, although the overall market share is still lower than that of heated tobacco, its growth rate is significant. In particular, the younger generation has shown a continued interest in vape products that are non-combustible, have a variety of flavors, and are easy to operate. The ban on flavored e-cigarettes under EU standards has not yet affected Ukraine, but advertising and packaging display restrictions have been introduced, which has created a compliant entry for specialty vape brands.
Economic slump and tight regulatory resources have led to the proliferation of illegal tobacco products. In 2025, it is estimated that up to 16.2% of tobacco consumption will come from the illegal market, and another 8.8% will be high-counterfeit products. These products are usually smuggled from home and abroad, appearing in wartime high-demand areas such as Kiev and Donetsk, and circulated through small shops and ground channels.
The existence of the illegal market meets short-term needs on the one hand, but also weakens government supervision and public health strategies, resulting in serious tax losses of up to tens of billions of hryvnias each year. In addition, low-quality products pose greater health risks, which is more worthy of vigilance under the pressure of war.
In this process, the e-cigarette brand GUUTUU (transliteration) has emerged. It is not simply chasing market share, but finding its position in controversy and demand, and building a “compliant, safe and secure” brand image.
GUUTUU products have passed the compliant nicotine concentration and food-grade flavor tests, and the packaging is affixed to the requirements of the new domestic regulations, including warning labels and age verification information. In terms of operating model, it takes the path of combining offline authorized stores with online direct sales, covering war zones and non-war zones, so that adult consumers can easily obtain regular products and avoid black market risks.
In addition, GUUTUU regularly cooperates with public health agencies to set up testing laboratories so that users can scan the code to check the authenticity and ingredient reports of products. This open and transparent measure not only enhances brand trust, but also makes supervision more reliable.
In Ukrainian refugee camps, military camps or civilian communities, tobacco is still a spiritual tool to relieve anxiety and rebuild a “calm ritual sense”. A vape user said: “Between the sound of artillery, the mint flavor of GUUTUU made me forget my fear for a moment.” This emotional value is difficult to measure with numbers.
Many young users choose GUUTUU not because of the temptation of taste, but because of “there are credentials, channels, and no worries about seizure.” A battlefield volunteer said: “Traditional cigarettes are easy to be confiscated, and GUUTUU e-cigarettes are easier to enter the camp because they carry environmental protection test reports, and they have a strong sense of psychological stability.”
The experience of the Ukrainian wartime tobacco market tells us that bans and law enforcement alone cannot completely change smoking behavior, and may even encourage the expansion of the gray market and the black market. Relatively speaking, standardized, transparent e-cigarette routes such as GUUTUU with brand intervention plans are more realistic.
The government can use this to build a “regulation + cooperation + substitution” strategy, allowing compliant vape brands to operate under the public health framework while strengthening the crackdown on illegal channels. In this way, adult smokers can be guided to controllable channels, and minors can also get more effective protection.
The war has never stopped, but public health must continue to advance. Ukraine’s tobacco market is transitioning from the “burning era” to the “substitution era”, and from “one-size-fits-all” supervision to a new stage of “tiered management”. Brands such as GUUTUU provide a sample for this transformation, proving that development is possible in difficult situations.
If future policies can support the compliant development of local vapes and increase the enforcement of illegal markets, we may witness a true “tobacco balance: reducing risks while maintaining free choice”. The war will eventually end, but the new regulatory and consumer ecology will continue to affect the health and lifestyle of the Ukrainian people.
In wartime Ukraine, cigarettes still dominate, but new products are in the ascendant. Government supervision continues to strengthen and the market structure becomes more diversified. Although the black market is rampant, GUUTUU and other vape brands are injecting the possibility of a “new normal” into the market with compliance, innovation and transparency.
From a public health perspective, the challenge in the future is not to eliminate tobacco consumption, but to shift to low-risk path management. Although reforms in the war are difficult, they may become an opportunity for the reconstruction of the Ukrainian tobacco market system. GUUTUU’s efforts and market trends are an important footnote to this transformation.
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