Draft bill #12447 of January 27, 2025 

Sponsor: the Cabinet 

Status: sent for review to the Committee on State Administration, Local Governance, Regional Development, and Urban Planning and the Law Enforcement Committee 

Who is affected: all residents of Ukraine, state bodies, and local self-government bodies 

Summary: 

  • the bill will eliminate outdated terms from current laws that do not align with new regulations regarding the administrative-territorial organization of Ukraine: “a city of national significance”, “a city of oblast significance”, “an urban-type settlement”, etc. 
  • the issue of forming electoral districts for elections of councilors to oblast, raion, and city district councils, as well as city, rural, and settlement councils (in communities with over 10,000 voters), will also be addressed: 
    • if a city has districts, the electoral districts for the city council will be allowed to include not only parts of the city itself but also neighboring villages, settlements, or other cities if they belong to the same community 
    • territorial electoral districts for the raion council elections will not be allowed to include parts of the territories of different territorial communities within the raion. That is, the electoral district will have to be within one community and not comprise “pieces” of different communities. 

What is right: 

  • the bill aligns the provisions of other laws with the law on the procedure for resolving certain issues of the administrative-territorial organization of Ukraine and takes into account the changes in the administrative-territorial organization that occurred in 2020. 

Why this is important: 

The current administrative-territorial organization was established slightly less than a century ago by the Soviet authorities. It met the needs of strict centralized governance in a totalitarian state. Since the independence, Ukraine has not changed it, and this organization has been one of the reasons hindering the development of both territories and local self-governance in Ukraine. Partially, this issue has been addressed by the decentralization reform, but it will not be sustainable or complete without the modernization of the administrative-territorial organization. 

Additional information: 

  • article by Nadiia Sukha: Oblasts are not needed. What the administrative and territorial organization of Ukraine should be like 
  • article by Nazar Zabolotnyi: Steam train in the Hyperloop age: why the administrative organization of Ukraine is hopelessly outdated