Who runs local government in Ukraine?

Between 2015 and 2020 Ukraine merged about 11,000 small councils into 1,469 territorial communities (hromadas) and cut 490 districts to 136, giving the new hromadas much more money and responsibility. Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, martial law has applied: oblast and district administrations work as military administrations, and in some front-line or liberated places military administrations have replaced elected local bodies. Local elections due in October 2025 were not held, and councils elected in 2020 remain in office until elections can be held after martial law ends.

Ukraine · Unitary republic · Eastern Europe

The levels of government below the nation

Level	How it is chosen	What it does
Oblasts (24), Autonomous Republic of Crimea, cities of Kyiv and Sevastopol	Oblast council directly elected; executive power held by an oblast state administration whose head is appointed by the President (under martial law: oblast military administration)	The council approves budgets and programmes; the appointed administration runs state functions.
Rayons – districts (136)	Rayon council directly elected; rayon state (now military) administration head appointed by the President	Since 2020 a much smaller role, mostly co-ordination and state functions.
Hromadas – territorial communities (1,469: urban, settlement and rural)	Council and head (mayor) directly elected for five years, last in October 2020	Schools, primary health care, local roads, utilities, administrative service centres, local budgets.
Starosta districts (starostynskyi okruh)	Starosta – a local official who represents villages within a hromada (approved by the hromada council)	Link between outlying villages and the hromada council.

Three questions about local power in Ukraine

Are local leaders elected?

Hromada heads and councils, rayon councils and oblast councils are directly elected (last in 2020). Heads of oblast and rayon administrations are appointed by the President. Heads of military administrations of settlements are appointed, not elected.

Which laws set up local government?

The Constitution (Chapter XI), the 1997 Law on Local Self-Government, the 2015 Law on Voluntary Amalgamation and the Law on the Legal Regime of Martial Law set the rules. Volunteer networks and churches are informal.

Who are local leaders accountable to?

Normally voters, courts and the State Audit Service check local bodies. Under martial law, military administrations answer up the chain to the President and Cabinet, and the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) can create them where local councils are judged not to be working, which limits local accountability.

Traditional and customary authority

There is no customary authority in law. Churches (mainly the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Greek Catholic Church) are important in community life and in support for soldiers and displaced people, but have no formal local power.

Community and neighbourhood power

Ukraine has a long tradition of self-organised bodies: residents' associations of apartment blocks (OSBB), house and street committees, and volunteer networks that grew sharply after 2014 and again after 2022 to supply the army and help displaced people. Hromadas can hold general meetings of residents, public hearings and participatory budgets. These groups are civil society; they are not part of the state, though councils often work closely with them.

Points to know

After the 2015–2020 reform, local budgets rose from UAH 68.6 billion in 2014 to UAH 275 billion in 2019 (government reform portal).
The 2020 Election Code made parties nominate candidates in hromadas with more than 10,000 voters.
Kyiv has both an elected mayor and a city military administration created in 2022.
Constitutional amendments to replace appointed administrations with prefects and give councils their own executives were drafted but not adopted.
In 2026 the state took a bigger share of personal income tax away from local budgets, according to an OSW study (2026).

Local terms

Hromada: Territorial community: the basic unit of local self-government, often several villages around a town.
Starosta: Representative of outlying villages inside a hromada.
Military administration: Temporary body set up under martial law that can take over the powers of councils and executives.
OSBB: Association of co-owners of an apartment building.

Sources

Constitution of Ukraine (1996, rev. 2019), Constitute Project, checked 14 October 2026
Ukraine: country profile (territorial organisation, responsibilities, finance), OECD–UCLG World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment (SNG-WOFI), checked 14 October 2026
About the reform: decentralisation of power in Ukraine, Decentralisation portal (decentralization.ua), reform programme site supported by the Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories, checked 14 October 2026
Between a rock and a hard place: problems of Ukraine's local self-government in wartime (OSW Commentary, July 2026), Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), Warsaw, checked 14 October 2026