Winter time is back: on the night of October 26, Ukraine sets its clocks back
25 October 2025 10:12
On the night of Sunday, October 26, Ukrainians will switch to winter time by setting their clocks back one hour at 4 a.m.
Thus, the day will automatically increase by an hour, reports "Komersant Ukrainian".
Summer and winter time was first introduced in the UK in 1908 to save money and rationalize the distribution of electricity during the day.
For decades, clocks in Ukraine have been reset to winter and summer time on the last Sunday of October and the last Sunday of March, respectively.
This procedure is regulated by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 509 “On the Procedure for Calculating Time on the Territory of Ukraine” dated May 13, 1996.
on July 16, 2024, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law on timekeeping in Ukraine (Draft Law No. 4201), abolishing the transition from summer to winter time and vice versa.
According to this document, a single Kyiv time, UTC 2, was to be established on the territory of Ukraine. Therefore, in 2024, on the last Sunday of October, Ukrainians were to set their clocks to winter time for the last time, and starting in 2025, daylight saving time was not to be introduced in Ukraine. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not yet signed the law.
Which countries do not change their clocks
Due to the questionable energy savings and negative impact on health, many countries around the world have eventually abandoned daylight saving time. For example, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Japan, and Belarus do not change their clocks.
in 2019, the European Parliament supported the decision to cancel daylight saving time in 2021, but there is still no final decision. In fact, each EU country would have to decide on its own what time to live by. Currently, most European countries change their clocks every year in March and October.
How daylight saving time affects the body
Scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden conducted a large study and concluded that switching to winter time on the last Sunday of October is accompanied by a reduced risk of heart attack on Monday. The main reason for this is changes in sleep duration that affect the functioning of the cardiovascular system.
In the fall and winter, daylight hours are shorter, and due to weather conditions, people spend more time indoors. As a result, they receive little light, which can lead to mood swings, fatigue, muscle pain, and sleep disturbances.
The loss of daylight hours in the evening after the fall clock change can trigger seasonal affective disorder, a depression associated with a lack of daylight. The results of a study published in the journal Epidemiology show that in the first days after the clocks are set to winter time, the number of newly diagnosed depressions increases by 11% compared to other periods of the year.
