Two men allegedly selling kratom as a supplement through the mail were arrested by police in Kyiv, Ukraine and charged with illegal sale of a controlled substance.
The narcotics unit of the Kyiv police discovered the kratom after tracing it back to the residence where two men sold it by mail through a Telegram account. The men, 26 and 28 years old, could face up to 12 years in prison.
Kratom was added to Ukraine’s list of prohibited substances in November 2024, meaning its sale, possession, and distribution are illegal. In October 2025, police arrested a city official and 28 others, including her family members, for operating a large kratom distribution network out of Rivne, Ukraine. They also arrested 12 others in October in a separate bust for selling kratom online.
The decision to make kratom illegal in Ukraine, despite law enforcement already being structurally overstretched due to wartime instability, appears driven by misconceptions about kratom’s abuse potential. When making the larger October busts, the Office of the Prosecutor General of the Ternopil region included a note stating that mitragynine has an effect “that is 10 times stronger than morphine”. This has also been a misconception held by some law enforcement officials in the United States. It stems from a single animal study showing that 7-hydroxymitragynine, not kratom, was voluntarily selected by test animals more often than morphine.
Historically, many governments have intensified drug controls during wartime in order to prevent social disorder and increase police surveillance and arrest powers. During World Wars I and II, Japan and Britain cracked down on morphine, cocaine, and methamphetamine use among soldiers. During the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon declared a War on Drugs specifically to combat anti-war protestors as well as African Americans during the height of civil rights activism.
Ukraine has been under martial law since February 2022. With only three major busts related to the sale of kratom, it’s not entirely evident that Ukraine is specifically outlawing kratom to control the population. In general, however, progressive laws regarding recreational or psychoactive substances do not occur given the upheaval of a wartime society.