A thousand is no longer enough: the NBU introduces a 2,000-hryvnia banknote featuring Vasyl Stus

From 4 September 2026, the NBU will introduce a 2,000-hryvnia banknote

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10 Jul 2026

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The National Bank of Ukraine is expanding the nominal range of the hryvnia: from 4 September 2026 a new banknote with a denomination of 2,000 hryvnias will enter cash circulation. It will become the highest-denomination Ukrainian banknote, and its obverse depicts the Sixtier poet, human rights defender and Soviet political prisoner Vasyl Stus.

The decision was announced on 10 July 2026 during a press briefing announced by the head of the NBU Andrii Pyshnyi.

The new banknote will be introduced into circulation on 4 September for a reason. It was on this day in 1965, during the premiere of the film “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” at the Kyiv cinema “Ukraine”, that Vasyl Stus, Viacheslav Chornovil and Ivan Dziuba staged an open protest against the mass repressions of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. On 4 September 1985 the poet died in a Soviet special-regime camp.

The obverse of the banknote features a portrait and signature of Vasyl Stus, the national emblem, the name of the National Bank and the denomination. The reverse shows the building of the Philology Faculty of Donetsk National University, where the poet studied.

The design also uses elements inspired by mosaics by the artist Alla Horska, in particular the image of the falcon from the well-known Mariupol panel. The banknote includes a line from a poem Vasyl Stus wrote in prison: “And the candle flickers with the dawn that our great-grandson will call a day.” The inscription is set in a font created based on the graphics of Heorhii Narbut, the author of the first hryvnias and shahi of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

The size of the new banknote will be 75 by 166 millimetres, and its main colour will be blue. The note will have more than 20 security features, including an updated blue-and-yellow “window” thread and an optically variable SPARK element with a colour shift from magenta to golden-green.

According to the NBU, this will be the world’s first banknote with a polychrome animated security thread, Anima Colour. When the viewing angle changes, it will create a motion effect, and the image of the Tryzub will change to the hryvnia sign.

Andrii Pyshnyi explained that the choice of Vasyl Stus’s figure was influenced, in particular, by works by Ukrainian children who were invited to depict a historical figure for future banknotes.

“The NBU Money Museum invited children to depict a historical figure they would like to see on banknotes. Six children’s works on the banknotes of the new denomination depicted exactly Vasyl Stus. After that I personally had no doubts,” said the head of the NBU.

The National Bank explains the need for the new denomination by changes in the economy. After the introduction of the 1,000-hryvnia banknote in 2019, the average monthly wage in Ukraine roughly tripled, while the price level doubled. In May 2026 the average salary reached 30,961 hryvnias.

The volume of cash in circulation over 7 years increased from almost UAH 390 billion to more than UAH 970 billion as of 1 July 2026. The share of 1,000-hryvnia banknotes by value has already exceeded 55%, which the NBU cites as one of the traditional signals to introduce a higher denomination.

The new note is also being introduced to reduce the costs of production, transportation, cash collection, counting and storage. In 2025 the NBU transported 224 tonnes of 200-hryvnia banknotes, 264 tonnes of 500-hryvnia banknotes and 245 tonnes of thousand-hryvnia notes. According to the regulator’s calculations, replacing part of the cash with the new denomination could halve the logistical load compared with 1,000-hryvnia notes, reduce it fourfold compared with 500-hryvnia notes and tenfold compared with 200-hryvnia notes.

Despite the increase in cash volume, Ukrainians are increasingly paying by card: in 2026 96 out of 100 transactions with payment cards are cashless. At the same time, the NBU emphasizes that during the war cash remains critically important for frontline communities and in crisis situations when there is no electricity or stable mobile connection.

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