After Kyiv road crash, Zelenskyy orders preparations for NSDC meeting on tougher penalties for traffic violations

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council would be held shortly to address the situation on Ukrainian roads.

He said this in his evening address on August 17, Censor.NET reports.

Reason for the decision

Zelenskyy said he had spoken with NSDC Secretary Ihor Klymenko about the latest incident in the capital, in which a car travelling at speed collided with another vehicle and careened onto the pavement. According to the president, the person behind the wheel "should, frankly, have lost the right to drive a long time ago."

The president recalled petitions and appeals concerning the situation on the roads, including those from Oleksii Hlushych, the father of a 12-year-old boy killed in a road crash.

President’s instructions

Zelenskyy said penalties must be toughened for those who systematically violate traffic rules and disregard the lives of others. He stressed the need for effective measures rather than cosmetic changes.

"I expect the NSDC secretary to involve lawmakers, civil society organisations and all necessary state institutions in preparing the relevant changes," the president said, adding that every life must be protected and conditions created in which it would truly be safe.

Background

On the morning of August 17, two BMW cars collided in Kyiv. The impact sent one of them into a restaurant’s outdoor terrace, where it overturned.
According to media reports, one of the drivers was Kyrylo Ostrovskyi, known from the high-profile case involving a 2018 road crash on Lesi Ukrainky Boulevard that killed a 10-year-old girl. In 2022, Kyiv’s Pecherskyi District Court sentenced him to four and a half years in prison. However, police identified the other driver as the one who violated the traffic rules.

Fatal road accident in Kyiv on 5 June 2026

As a reminder, on 5 June in Kyiv, the driver of a Mercedes car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone near Karavaevi Dachi in the Solomianskyi district.
Senior Police Lieutenant Dmytro Bondarchuk, Police Lieutenant Denys Budchenko and 12-year-old Hryhorii Hlushych, whose father is currently serving in the war, were killed at the scene.
Iryna Lazareva, an employee at a pre-school, was also killed.
The court remanded the killer driver, Pleshyvtsev, in custody; he had driven into an underpass in Kyiv, killing four people.
The father of 12-year-old Hryhorii Hlushych, who was killed in a traffic accident in Kyiv, registered a petition calling for improved road safety and penalties for reckless drivers; the petition gathered the required 25,000 signatures for consideration by the president in just 14 days.