Presidential decree #69/2025 of February 5, 2025 

Initiator: the National Security and Defense Council 

Status: in effect since February 5, 2025 

Who is affected: residents of Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), the Cabinet, the Antimonopoly Committee, critically important enterprises, the Office of the Prosecutor General, law enforcement agencies, the National Agency of Ukraine for Finding, Tracing, and Management of Assets Derived from Corruption and Other Crimes (ARMA), the State Financial Monitoring Service, and the State Tax Service 

Summary: 

  • the Cabinet has to ensure: 
    • full funding for expenditures on education, healthcare, and social security in 2025 
    • the increase of funding for the procurement of modern weapons and equipment 
    • import substitution industrialization and better support for national producers 
    • enhanced cooperation with the European Union on humanitarian demining 
    • engagement of the additional sources of international aid 
  • the Cabinet has to amend the resolution on military reservation: 
    • improve the criteria for determining critically important enterprises 
    • define specifics of identifying critically important producers of electrical and thermal energy, including production capacities that have been destroyed as a result of the Russian aggression 
    • introduce the option to reserve employees of enterprises that supply thermal energy or water, maintain sewerage, or provide services of household waste management (not more than 75 percent of the total number of employees subject to military service) 
  • in cooperation with the Antimonopoly Committee, the Cabinet must analyze prices on drugs and implement mechanisms to prevent the increase of these prices 
  • in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General, law enforcement agencies, and ARMA, the Cabinet has to analyze the assets of the individuals under sanctions 
  • in cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor General and other law enforcement agencies, the Cabinet is supposed to analyze materials provided by the State Financial Monitoring Service and the State Tax Service regarding national security threats and the application of sanctions against individuals committing illegal acts harmful to the economic security of the state. 

What is wrong: 

  • the decree disrupts the balance of power: the President has no right to issue orders unrelated to his powers, particularly on the economic and healthcare policies. The exclusive list of presidential powers is defined in the Constitution 
  • the NSDC, according to the Constitution, is a coordinating body on security and defense issues, it has no authority to address the economic policy. 

Alternative solution: the solutions to the issues from the decree should be developed and implemented by the Cabinet of Ministers. 

While monitoring decisions by the authorities, the Centre of United Actions repeatedly indicated that the President issues decrees regarding policies that are not under his jurisdiction. The only way out of this situation is to stop doing that. 

Additional information: 

column by Oksana Zabolotna: The NSDC becomes an alternative Cabinet. Why is this bad?