Ukraine

Ukraine is an Eastern European republic, a former socialist Soviet republic bordered by Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova. One of the healthier economies to recover from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was badly hurt by the worldwide financial meltdown of 2008. Like much of Eastern Europe, Ukraine has experienced significant problems with drug abuse and drug trafficking since the fall of the Soviet Union, when drug cartels moved in to take advantage of previously unavailable markets amid the social chaos.

The rise of Eastern European crime syndicates during that same period, and Ukraine's porous borders and understaffed law enforcement and antinarcotics agencies, turned Ukraine into a major transit point for heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan, bound for Europe or Russia. Russia in particular has a steadily growing number of heroin addicts, requiring as much as 10 metric tons of heroin a year, much of which travels through Ukraine. The border between Russia and Ukraine is primarily unguarded, and sparsely populated, while the Black Sea coastline is almost completely unprotected, with minimal boat patrols.

Ukraine has also become an opium producer, with about 3,000 new hectares of poppy fields planted every year. The country's financial troubles have accelerated the flow of drug traffic: in 2007 and 2008, more heroin was seized than in the previous 15 years combined. The through-traffic has contributed to Ukraine's drug use problems by keeping the cost of drugs low: intermediaries and corrupt officials along traffic routes are often paid in product rather than cash, which they then resell for pure profit.

Approximately 1.3 percent of the population between the ages of 15 and 64 use opiate drugs, with most of this being opium use. Officials believe opium use is roughly twice as widespread as heroin use. The overwhelming majority of drug-related emergency room cases in Ukraine are caused by heroin or opium.

In the 21st century, Middle Eastern heroin has been joined by European synthetic drugs heading through Ukraine to Russia. Ecstasy and amphetamines [Page 795]have been found in great quantities in seizures of trucks traveling through Ukraine from the European Union.

There is little to speak of in the way of anti-narcotics professionals in Ukraine. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs have conducted antinarcotics training programs, focusing particularly on border control and money laundering in order to make Ukraine a less attractive destination for cartel traffic, but the country has lacked the necessary infrastructure and expert workforce.

Ukraine has recently entered into a joint program with Belarus and Moldova: BUMAD (Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova Against Drugs) is financed by the European Union (EU) with help from the United Nations, and is intended to reduce drug trafficking in those three countries, and to share information among them in order to maximize what antinarcotics resources are available. Customs agents and border guards are trained by BUMAD to better respond to suspicious situations and to follow protocols similar to those used in the EU; special focus will be placed on seaports, which have been all but unmonitored; and various treatment and drug education programs are planned in order to reduce the demand for drugs, although ultimately the demand most relevant to routes through these countries is that at the final destinations.

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