The Human Rights Situation in Ukraine

The Human Rights Situation in Ukraine (Report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation)

May 28, 2026

Introduction

This report continues the Ministry’s efforts to draw attention of the international community to the grave human rights situation in Ukraine. Numerous documented facts of human rights violations confirm that, by this time, the situation it this sphere in Ukraine has seriously deteriorated.

First and foremost, and to a large extent, it is due to the fact that an openly neo-Nazi regime remains in Kiev, a regime that is now quite overtly and diligently replicating the policies and practices of its ideological inspirer – the Nazi Germany. This course is accompanied by countless systemic human rights violations across all spheres of public life. However, this causes no concern, whatsoever, to the Kiev regime, which has been reassured recently by the West that it would continue to be further supplied with additional financial resources and weapons. In the context of the enormous scale of corruption in Ukraine, this means, for Kiev and its certain functionaries, a continued opportunity to “make money” and press ahead with military operations.

It is precisely this servile readiness of the incumbent Kiev leadership to destroy, with its own hands, its country, its people, as well as the history and memory of their true past, that explains why its Western sponsors continue not only to turn a blind eye to neo-Nazi ideology and crimes of the Ukrainian authorities, but also to justify them. It should be recalled, as a matter of principle, that history offers no shortage of such examples of the West’s support for outright racist and Nazi regimes. The fate of these regimes is well known, as was repeatedly noted during the recent events marking the 81st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

General Situation

It is quite clear by now that the ruling regime in Kiev is an out-and-out Nazi regime, inspired by Nazi Germany in everything it does and engaged in countless gross and systematic violations of human rights in all areas of public life.

And starting from February 2014, when nationalists seized power in Kiev as a result of an unconstitutional armed coup d’état orchestrated by the West, violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms in Ukraine, and especially the glorification of Nazism, have become widespread and systemic. With active encouragement from their Western handlers, the government is working to mould the society on the basis of Nazi ideas. To that end, Kiev is consistently spreading aggressive neo-Nazi propaganda accompanied by the rewriting of the history of the Great Patriotic War and World War II. Glorification of Nazism, promotion of its penetration into all spheres of public life, systemic suppression of human rights, opposition and dissent, as well as the fight against everything connected with Russia, has become a targeted State policy in Ukraine. At the same time, Ukraine is consistently pursuing a course of forced Ukrainisation of all spheres of public life and sped-up assimilation of national and ethnic minorities.

As part of the policy of glorifying Nazism, distorted interpretations of historical events are being instilled, which belittle the USSR role in and contribution to the victory over fascism and are aimed at destroying the historical memory of the Ukrainian people about those times. Ukraine’s state policy and the government’s active steps at all levels aimed at whitewashing and glorifying hate ideology and Nazi collaborators of World War II, and dignifying various Ukrainian groups that collaborated with the Nazi invaders during the war, under the guise of members of the “national liberation movement” – all serve to cultivate nationalist sentiments among broad segments of Ukrainian society. Particular attention is paid to the adoption of a wide range of measures to provide state support for the movements glorifying Nazi criminals and their acolytes.

Annual torchlight processions to honour the Nazi criminal Stepan Bandera have been legalized in the country. The birthdays of this collaborationist and another criminal, Roman Shukhevich, are marked as national holidays. Celebrations of such “anniversaries” and other similar “memorable dates” of other Ukrainian nationalists who have stained themselves with mass murder of civilians are enshrined in law in Ukraine. The SS Galicia Division is held in high esteem. Much is done under this “brand”: from issuing stamps and holding thematic exhibitions to decisions by a number of city councils to use the banner of this Nazi association on an equal foot with the state flag.

Former SS members are also honoured in every possible way, up to granting them the Hero of Ukraine title. These “public figures” have monuments erected to them and are reburied with great solemnity. Laws have been adopted that not only equalize veterans of the Great Patriotic War and former members of Nazi and collaborationist units, but also provide the latter with significant benefits to the detriment of the former. Books glorifying the Nazis and their memoirs are published. The Nazis are glorified in Ukrainian schools through various forms of “patriotic education” of children and youth.

The implantation of hateful ideology became so widespread after the bloody unconstitutional putsch of 2014, when extremists, sponsored by Western countries, infiltrated all levels of Ukrainian government. The leading forces in this process were extremist nationalist organizations, in particular “Right Sector,” “Svoboda” and other nationalist organizations, which are the ideological successors of Ukrainian nationalists, known for their collaboration with the Nazis and mass murder of Soviet civilians during the Great Patriotic War.[1]

Instead of forming a coalition government of national unity, as envisaged by the agreement signed on 21 February 2014 by President Yanukovych and leaders of the then opposition, the forces that seized power in Kiev announced the creation of a “government of the winners”. One of its first steps was an attempt to revoke the status of the Russian language in Ukraine, which only served to increase tensions in the country. Those who did not accept the coup and called for autonomy and federalization were labelled “separatists” and “terrorists” by the putschists, who began to use force against the former, declaring a so-called “anti-terrorist operation” (ATO) in April 2014. They shelled the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine with heavy weapons and used combat aircraft against peaceful towns.

The terrible crimes of that period are still horrifying, one of the most brutal being the burning alive of at least 48 people on 2 May 2014 in the Trade Union House in Odessa. No one in Ukraine is going to investigate them.[2] Moreover, in May 2026, information appeared on social networks and in the media that Ukrainian neo-Nazis had cast “awards” for the murderers from the monument to the founders of Odessa (to Catherine II and her associates O.M. Deribas (Josep de Ribas), F.P. de Volan, G.A. Potemkin, P.A. Zubov), which was demolished in 2022. According to media reports, the Ukrainian Department of Territorial Defense Forces “South” awarded it to local neo-Nazis. This notorious “award” depicts a burning bottle with a Molotov cocktail and is engraved with the inscription “Victory over the Russian Spring.” Odessa, 2 May 2014.” The first to receive this ” insignia ” was S.Gutsalyuk, head of the Odessa branch of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, who led the neo-Nazis who stormed the Trade Union House in 2014.[3] All the above is only proof of the Nazi nature of the regime established in Kiev.

The following fact convincingly demonstrates the intentions of the Kiev authorities in respect of Donbass – in addition to Ukraine’s regular armed forces, the ATO status implied engaging irregular “volunteer battalions” whose atrocities even the international organizations and structures patronizing Kiev, including the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), could not remain silent about.

However, the accusations of “terrorism” against Donbass residents used by Kiev as a pretext for launching the ATO turned out to be a fake. This was confirmed by the UN International Court of Justice ruling of 31 January 2024 on Ukraine’s claim against the Russian Federation; it refused to recognize the Donbass republics as “terrorist organizations” and Russia as a “sponsor of terrorism”. Thus, Kiev’s actions against the LPR and DPR were illegitimate from the very beginning. In the same decision, the Court dismissed the Kiev regime’s speculations about the alleged “racial discrimination” in Crimea, which had been propagated not only by pro-Western NGOs but also by a number of international organizations and their structural subdivisions. In addition, the Court repeatedly questioned their conclusions, which were not supported by sufficient evidence.

Of great importance for understanding the true essence of the Kiev regime is the conclusion, noted by a number of researchers and Russian political leaders, that in 2022 it underwent a political mutation. The conditions it created as a result of the imposition of martial law allowed it to build a tough authoritarian governance system, featured by an absolute monopoly on power, extrajudicial punishments, censorship and government propaganda, including the de facto elimination of independent media and political opposition, an active search for traitors, fictitious Russian spies and saboteurs. By the way, traitors are already being sought in Western countries that support Zelensky’s criminal regime and where population and part of the political circles are gradually becoming inclined to revise their approaches to the situation in Ukraine. The Kiev regime has essentially degenerated into a neo-Nazi dictatorship, having adopted the ideology and practices of Ukrainian radical nationalists and glorifying Nazis and criminals. For such a regime, a state of war and the use of the widest range of repressive measures are necessary as the only and at the same time the safest way to preserve its dominance. It exists as long as the degree of escalation in society remains high, and armed confrontation with an external enemy continues. Bearing this in mind, the West is providing it with massive assistance, primarily military. The end of the conflict for such a regime would be tantamount to the end of its existence.

Operating in this paradigm, Kiev pursues a comprehensive discriminatory policy towards the Russian-speaking population and representatives of national minorities. Everything Russian – language, culture, printed matter of any kind, mass media – is banned in the country. Education in Russian, its study in any form is also banned. Literature, teaching and scientific material in Russian have been removed from the educational process. Even interpersonal communication in Russian at school is banned. The renaming of country’s topographic objects that are somehow connected with Russia, the Soviet Union and now even the Russian Empire, has reached enormous proportions. A massive campaign has been launched to destroy monuments to Russian and Soviet figures of science and culture, and to historic personalities.

The situation is moving towards a complete ban on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). On 20 August 2024, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted a law that came into force on 23 September 2024, creating a legal mechanism for a total ban on the UOC, which gave impetus to a new round of persecution of its clergy and parishioners, efforts to seize churches, monasteries, and other church property, including Orthodox shrines. Lawsuits are being considered in Ukrainian courts regarding the prohibition of the activities of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC and the expulsion of clergy of the UOC from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

A number of important points are worth emphasizing. After the start of the special military operation (SMO) of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, eliminate the threat emanating from its territory to Russia’s security, and protect the civilian population of Donbass, the Zelensky regime began to shape a legal framework for concentrating absolute power in its hands, essentially legislatively allowing itself to violate law.

On 24 February 2022, Vladimir Zelensky signed Decree No. 64/2022 “On the introduction of martial law in Ukraine.” It explicitly states that, for the duration of martial law, a number of provisions of the country’s constitution are suspended. This refers to Articles 30–34, 38, 39, 41–44, and 53 of Ukraine’s fundamental law. These provisions of the constitution conceal a virtual complete deprivation of citizens of their rights and freedoms. Thus, the decree of Vladimir Zelensky on martial law limits the inviolability of housing (Article 30), guarantees of confidentiality of correspondence, telephone conversations, telegraph and other correspondence (Article 31), non-interference in personal and family life (Article 32), freedom of movement and choice of place of residence, to leave the territory of Ukraine (Article 33), the right to freedom of thought and speech, to freely express one’s views and beliefs (Article 34), the right to elect and be elected to positions in state authorities and in local government structures (Article 38), the right to organize peaceful assemblies, rallies, demonstrations (Article 39), the opportunity to use and dispose of one’s property, the results of one’s intellectual and creative activity (Article 41), the opportunity to engage in entrepreneurial activity (Article 42), the right to work, which includes the opportunity to earn a living through an activity chosen by citizens themselves or to which they voluntarily agree (Article 43), the right to strike to protect their economic and social interests (Article 44), the right to education (Article 53).

Today, citizens of Ukraine are indeed legally deprived of the overwhelming majority of rights and freedoms that exist in all countries of the world. Persecution of political opponents, independent journalists and media outlets, and members of public organizations undesirable for the government, has taken on an unprecedented scale. It is frequently backed by claims about the need to confront “the Russian aggression” and “separatism”. Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine are subject to a greater degree of persecution.

For executions, the Kiev regime is making use of radical nationalist groups who frequently break the law but remain untouchable. Often, right-wing radicals freely intimidate and attack people on trial, their lawyers, and put pressure on members of the judiciary.

The Nazi approaches of the Kiev regime are clearly reflected in their attitude towards the inhabitants of Donbass. Dozens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including the elderly, women and children, were dying and suffering in the more than 10‑year‑old internal armed conflict unleashed by Kiev in the south-east of the country. As a result of the severe restrictions imposed by Ukraine, citizens living in the areas of hostilities were exposed to serious life-threatening risks. They had to daily overcome significant difficulties in obtaining basic services such as social benefits, water, heating and health care. Kiev’s military actions resulted in residential areas falling into disrepair, and there were no mechanisms for legal protection or compensation for the population of the Donbass.

The well-known utterances by Ukrainian leaders can serve as a convincing evidence of this Nazi approach: for example, in the summer of 2014, the former Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called the Donbass militias “subhumans” (similar to the Nazi “Untermenschen”) and Vladimir Zelensky said alluding to the citizens of his country against whom he imposed sanctions that not all people were human beings, some are just “species.”

The fact that the population of the Donbass does not enjoy the same scope of human rights as the population in Kiev-controlled Ukraine, was pointed out by the UN Human Rights Committee (HRCttee) in November 2021 (its concluding observations were published in February 2022).[4] According to the Committee, there were differences, including in the form of the difficulties encountered by civilians in the Donbass when seeking the issuance of birth certificates, which required a prior court decision. At the same time, it pointed out the need to intensify efforts to protect civilians, especially children, under wartime conditions, including demining. HRCttee also noted with concern the severe restrictions imposed against civilians crossing checkpoints on the line of contact, under the pretext of spreading coronavirus infection. The Committee highlighted the issue of restrictions on the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) noting with concern the multifaceted discrimination they face (with regard to their political rights, in particular opportunity to vote). This circumstance, in HRCttee opinion, hampers their reintegration into society. In this regard, the Kiev regime was recommended to facilitate the procedure for the registration of the actual residence of IDPs and encourage them to exercise their right to vote.

By the beginning of 2022, there were approximately 854,000 officially registered internally displaced persons in the country, who had become so as a result of the political crisis of 2014 and the subsequent escalation by Kiev of the military-political conflict in the territory of Donbass. After February 2022, the scale of internal displacement increased many times over: already in April of that year, international organizations estimated the number of IDPs at 6.5–7.1 million people and by the end of the year – at 5.9–7 million people. In the subsequent period, some stabilization was observed, but not a return to pre-conflict levels: according to estimates at the end of 2023 and during 2024–2025, between 3.6 and 4.9 million officially registered IDPs remained in Ukraine, while certain analytical centres and international agencies cite higher estimates – up to 6 million people – taking into account both registered and unregistered displaced persons.[5]

The problem of corruption reached an unprecedented scale. The attempt by the Zelensky regime to hinder the investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) into large-scale embezzlement in the energy sector by restricting their powers encountered resistance from society and even discontent among Western overseers. As a result of the publication of the investigation materials, it was confirmed that corruption pervades the entire Ukrainian government, including the inner circle of Vladimir Zelensky.

The corruption scandal in 2025 surrounding NABU’s Operation Midas, during which corruption in Ukraine’s energy sector – overseen by individuals close to Vladimir Zelensky – was exposed, demonstrates that the highest echelons of Ukraine’s political elite are involved in large-scale embezzlement precisely in those areas that are officially declared as priorities for defence and survival. This increases distrust in the authorities and reduces their legitimacy in the eyes of their own population and the entire international community.

The situation in this area was pointed out with concern by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Independent Expert of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of human rights, following his mission to Ukraine in May 2018.[6] The extent of corruption was also highlighted by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in April 2014 and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in February 2017.[7] According to CEDAW experts, corruption, as well as growth of unemployment, decline in standards of living of the population, and the ongoing crisis create favourable conditions for widespread human trafficking.[8]

The growing corruption challenge is facilitated by the Kiev regime’s efforts to increase the forced mobilization of citizens, caused by high losses in the Ukrainian army. First of all, the male population of draft age, that is, from 18 to 60 years old, was prohibited from traveling abroad, with the exception of certain categories of individuals. Then a series of tightening measures followed. Conditions were created under which it became almost impossible for Ukrainian men to get a job or study without the approval of territorial recruitment centres (TRC).

On 18 May 2024 the law on tightening mobilisation in Ukraine came into force.[9]

In particular, it defines new categories of citizens who lose their deferment from mobilization, expands coercive measures against violators of military registration (forced delivery to the military enlistment office by police, restricted rights to drive a car, travel abroad, receive consular services abroad, including the issue of a passport, etc.). All conscripts, including those abroad, must update their data in territorial recruitment centres, administrative service centres or electronic personal accounts within 60 days from the moment the law comes into force. The law introduces the rule that all men from 18 to 60 years of age must carry a military ID card, regardless of whether or not they are fit for service or eligible for military deferment.[10]

On 9 May 2024, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted the Law on Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses Regarding the Improvement of Liability for Violation of Military Registration Rules and Legislation on Defence, Mobilization Training, and Mobilization (which entered into force on 19 May 2024), which provides for an increase in fines for violation of military registration rules.[11] Initially, the document also envisaged criminal liability for refusing a medical examination, but this provision was later removed.

At the same time, as of November 2025, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, 19,273 cases have been initiated for evasion of mobilization, of which 7,902 have been closed.[12]

Both these documents are contrary to international law and national legislation. Even Ukrainian Ombudsman, Dmitry Lubinets, has pointed out that the draft laws contain provisions that contradict the Constitution of Ukraine.[13]

The Ukrainian authorities do not hesitate to use the most illegal and inhumane methods in carrying out mobilization. A scheme is common when citizens who refuse to take a summon or present an ID are detained by the police, but taken to a military registration and enlistment office rather than a police station.

On 9 February 2026, the Verkhovnaya Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmitry Lubinets, speaking in parliament, stated that compared to 2024, the number of complaints regarding the work of military personnel of the territorial recruitment centres (TRC) doubled in 2025.[14] In 2022, his office received 18 complaints regarding violations by the TRC; 514 in 2023; 3,312 in 2024; and in 2025, the number of complaints reached 6,127.

Ukrainian citizens seeking to avoid mobilization, try to leave the country or otherwise avoid joining the AFU through various schemes, including corruption. As practice shows, even after paying a lot of money, Ukrainians often end up in the hands of military commissars, not at liberty. In particular, it is known that border guards hand out summons to draft age men, whom they manage to detain at attempting to cross the border through a popular though dangerous migration route – the Tisa River.[15] In June 2024, the Border Guard Service of Ukraine reported the deaths of about 50 citizens while attempting to swim across the river.

Videos with the violent detention of Ukrainian citizens by military and police officers are spawning on social networks. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are obviously growing sharply antagonistic to military commissars (the charactonym “man-catchers” has become widespread in the media). Cases of lynch of military registration and enlistment officers have become more frequent, numerous arson attacks on their vehicles and damage to other property occur. Many videos of protests against forced mobilization are also available on the Internet. In many cases people succeed in freeing their detainees.

According to the head of the National Police, Ivan Vygovsky, the number of cases of resistance to forced mobilization by citizens is steadily growing.[16] While in 2022 there were only 5 incidents of this kind, in 2023 there were already 38, in 2024 – 118, and in 2025 – 341. In reality, such cases appear to be significantly more numerous.

Against this backdrop, the Kiev authorities were forced to acknowledge the existence of the problem of forced mobilization (“busification”), which they had previously called “narratives of the Kremlin.”[17] During a meeting with the Minister of Defence of Ukraine, Mikhail Fiodorov, on 14 January 2026, Vladimir Zelensky instructed him to resolve systemic problems with the TRC and to carry out “large-scale changes in the mobilization process.”

International human rights monitoring mechanisms have recorded numerous cases of illegal detention, torture, intimidation, ill-treatment, sexual violence, including those aimed at forcing confession or cooperation. In November 2021, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern over acts of torture and ill-treatment reportedly continuing to be perpetrated by law enforcement authorities, as well as over the limited number of convictions handed down despite the high numbers of complaints lodged.[18]

As a result, chaos and lawlessness have spread across the country. People are detained, interrogated and searched by radicals at the slightest suspicion. As a result, civilians face the risk of being killed on the flimsy pretext of belonging to allegedly numerous “subversive groups” and “collaborators”. Numerous images of Nazi illegal massacres and abuse of civilians have been published on the Internet.

Right-wing militant groups use civilians as “human shields” with the authorities’ tacit permission. It was noted even in the materials by the NGO Amnesty International (research “Ukraine: military endangering civilians by locating forces in residential areas: a new study”), which underlines that Ukraine’s armed forces violate international humanitarian law (IHL) as they turn civilian objects into military targets.[19] Meanwhile, most international human rights structures, including those of the United Nations and the OSCE, deliberately keep silent about these facts. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights is a striking example of hyperactivity on this track; contrary to its mandate, the ODIHR has set up a “conveyor” release of the so-called reports on IHL violations in the SMO context; over and above making unfounded accusations against the Russian military, such reports, in fact, attempt to whitewash the criminal Kiev regime, whose armed forces commit mass crimes constituting violations of international law in the field of human rights and IHL. This circumstance undermines confidence not only in the activities of this specialized humanitarian unit of the OSCE, but also in the Organization as a whole.

The scale of the crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine appeared such that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) could not but pay attention to it. In particular, it noted the reports it received about human rights violations and abuses committed by the Ukrainian military against prisoners of war – both ethnic Russians and persons with Russian citizenship. Among the violations, CERD named reports of extrajudicial killings, torture and other ill-treatment and violations of fair trial and due process safeguards. It also noted the lack of detailed information on the situation of prisoners of war of other national origins. At the same time, the Committee pointed out the lack of information on investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sanctions for alleged human rights violations and abuses committed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.[20]

Trafficking in human beings, including minors, or, more precisely, in human organs for transplantation in Ukraine is worth separate mentioning. After the SMO had started, the media shared information about a 2022 surge in this trade which is a high-yielding business (the previous peak of such illegal activities was observed in 2014‑2015). This issue was also pointed out to by international organizations, including the OSCE, which noted in 2014 that bodies of people with removed internal organs, most likely victims of transplantologists, were found in mass graves in the hostilities area. This information was published, in particular, by the Tsargrad TV channel.[21]

Recently, Ukrainian resources have increasingly voiced the opinion that hostilities are being used for “black transplantology” purposes covered up by the Ukrainian state. Experts also note that, while the Kiev regime was preparing for an offensive against the Donbass Republics, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine began to urgently consider bills aimed at simplifying the activities of transplantologists in the country to the maximum, and from 2022 law-making in this area became even more active.[22]

In July 2024, a group of “black” transplantologists was uncovered in Ukraine, with high-ranking officials from Zelensky’s entourage directly involved. The organizers of the criminal scheme are suspected of illegally extracting human organs and cells. According to media reports, at least ten doctors from the Heart Institute, Volyn Regional Clinical Hospital, and Kiev Central City Clinical Hospital were detained in the case. Mikhail Zagriychuk, Deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine in 2019–2020, and then head abdominal organ transplantation and surgery at the Heart Institute, is a defendant in the case. He and his wife are believed people close to Vladimir Zelensky. What is interesting, the facts that have come to light are clearly just the tip of the criminal iceberg. As noted, the materials that have been published in recent years about entire cemeteries of civilians with removed organs in Donbass and the practice of “disassembling” wounded Ukrainian servicemen for the sake of organs ordered by Western clients have taken on new colours. Kiev law enforcement officers are supposed in this case to have only touched on an insignificant part of a huge scheme for the forced organ removal and sale abroad. The West, experts say, uncovered only an insignificant part of such crimes in the Balkans also “to calm the public”. And they want to do something similar now in Ukraine.[23] Anyway, this case confirms that the Kosovo Liberation Army, whose members are known to have been stained for cooperating with “black transplantologists,” has found “worthy” followers in Ukraine.

The most vulnerable categories are wounded and killed military personnel, as well as orphaned children. It is possible that the same illegal trade may also affect the Russian servicemen taken hostage and who are already being held in appalling conditions and subjected to torture and other forms of inhuman and cruel treatment. International monitoring mechanisms also corroborate such inhumane treatment of Russian servicemen.[24]

Ukrainian children are often sent abroad in the name of “scientific discoveries” of progressive Western medicine. The Farmbiotest laboratory had several branches on the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic, which was then under the control of the Kiev regime. One of them was located in the regional children’s hospital of Lisichansk. Minors from Mariupol, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov were brought there for research.[25] Unregistered drugs with severe side effects were tested on them, and donors were selected for organ transplantation.

Ukraine is one of the few countries where commercial cross-border surrogacy is permitted. This means that children can be “ordered” by childless married couples from abroad. According to official data from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine alone, approximately 1,500 children are born in this way each year. Of these, more than 90% leave abroad with their foreign parents.

In early August 2023, a large-scale scheme for smuggling new-born children abroad under the guise of surrogacy was uncovered in Ukraine. Among the organizers of the scheme were the heads of medical clinics providing reproductive medicine services in Kiev and Kharkov.[26] It has been reliably established that 8 infants were taken abroad, and investigations were conducted into another 40 cases.

Furthermore, as the results of numerous journalistic investigations show, underage Ukrainian citizens are being illegally trafficked from the territory of Ukraine to EU countries and the United States, including for adoption into LGBT families. Thus, in the process of liberating the Donbass republics, facts were uncovered indicating the illegal evacuation by the Kiev authorities of thousands of minors to Western countries. Childcare institutions – orphanages, shelters, boarding schools – were evacuated in their entirety, with all documents being destroyed.

Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that facts have recently come to light with increasing frequency regarding Kiev’s concealment of the real problems faced by Ukrainian families in Europe. In early April 2024, Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets stated in an interview with Ukrainian media that social services in European countries had taken 255 Ukrainian children away from their parents (71 cases in Germany, 33 in Poland, 25 in Italy, 24 in the Czech Republic, 17 in Sweden, etc.) At the same time, Ukrainian citizens who have despaired of getting their children back are turning to Russian foreign missions for help, as Ukrainian embassies, which are supposed to safeguard the interests of their citizens, refuse to assist them, citing certain “political circumstances.”

Of particular note are the reports published on 17 April 2024 by the Ukrinform news agency, citing the National Police of Ukraine, that more than 160 Ukrainian children, whom Kiev had claimed were taken to Russia, “unexpectedly turned up” in Germany.[27]

In December 2025, a scandal broke out involving the removal of Ukrainian children to Türkiye. In the spring of 2022, as part of the “Childhood without War” project by Elena Zelenskaya and businessman Ruslan Shostak, a group of underage orphans from Dnepropetrovsk was taken to Türkiye for “humanitarian purposes.” Journalists obtained a report from a delegation consisting of representatives of the Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights, UNICEF, and the Turkish Ombudsman, which conducted a monitoring visit in 2024 to verify the living conditions of the minors. It was revealed that the children had become victims of psychological and sexual abuse. They were effectively deprived of adequate supervision, had no opportunity to study, were regularly used in the filming of propaganda videos, punished by being deprived of food, beaten, and humiliated.[28] In the end, two of the children returned to Ukraine pregnant.

On 9 January 2026, the Verkhovnaya Rada Commissioner of Ukraine, Dmitry Lubinets, was forced to issue an official comment on the matter, from which it became known that the Turkish side had contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine regarding the mistreatment of the children, but these inquiries were not duly taken into account.[29]

Moreover, representatives of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, based on an analysis conducted in 2023, gave a positive assessment of the conditions for the children’s stay in Türkiye.

When, at the beginning of 2024, the Ukrainian Ombudsman began receiving information directly from the children, as well as from other sources including the Turkish side, about violations of the minors’ rights, a monitoring group consisting of representatives of the Ukrainian Ombudsman, UNICEF, and the Turkish side was sent to the children’s placement site, which documented the mistreatment of the children in its report. This report fell into the hands of the media, which then made its contents public.

There is no question of authorities bringing those responsible for many of the said offences to justice. Except a few cases noted above, the relevant international organizations, such as the Council of Europe, OSCE, a number of United Nations bodies and others, turn a blind eye to these issues. Moreover, thanks to their efforts, Ukraine is side-tracking international control in this area. Official Kiev has been granted this exclusive “right” by the collective West, which is already influencing the UN Secretariat and several other UN entities. All this gives the Zelensky regime a sense of total impunity and at the same time seriously damages the reputation of UN bodies.

Again, let us remember that Ukraine’s gradual withdrawal from the UN human rights treaty bodies began in 2011, when Kiev reported for the last time to most of the convention committees. This process was legalised already in February 2022, when, referring to Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Zelensky regime declared itself free from obligations under a wide range of articles of this document.

There are also examples of UN Human Rights Council special procedures blatantly covering up the Kiev regime. In particular, following her visit to Ukraine in the fall of 2023, the UN HRC Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Gill Edwards, described the situation with torture in Ukraine as “not causing concern” and the efforts of the authorities to prevent it as “impressive”.

In addition to that, due to the martial law declared in 2022, Kiev officially announced the temporary suspension of Ukraine’s obligations under a number of articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Since that time, Ukraine has regularly extended the martial law regime, reported it to international structures, and confirmed or modified the terms of its participation in international human rights treaties in this regard. In light of the above, a number of provisions of international treaties remain officially suspended by Ukraine to date, including Articles 12 (on the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose a place of residence), 17 (on interference with privacy and family life), 19 (on freedom of expression), 21 (on the right to peaceful assembly) and 25 (on participation in public affairs and elections) of the Covenant, and Articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life), 10 (freedom of expression), and 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the Convention, as well as Articles 1 (protection of property), 2 (right to education), 3 (right to free elections) of the Additional Protocol to the Convention and Article 2 (freedom of movement) of Protocol No. 4 to the Convention.

It should be noted that the numerous reports of crimes committed with unprecedented brutality by Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups and foreign mercenaries against Russian servicemen are not included in this document. An assessment of these criminal acts by present-day neo-Nazis in Ukraine, who have fully demonstrated their loyalty to the hateful ideas and tactics of the German fascists and local collaborators from the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)[30] during the Great Patriotic War, is being made by the Russian competent authorities as part of the investigation of numerous criminal cases concerning these heinous crimes. Significant efforts are also made by Russian civil society organizations, as well as all concerned individuals who are revealing the truth about the Nazi essence of the Kiev regime and the national radicals it covers. Information about the crimes is included in separate analytical materials (one such example is the report published in February 2026 by the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Ambassador-at-Large for Crimes of the Kiev Regime, Rodion Miroshnik, titled “Violation of International Humanitarian Law by the Kiev Regime Regarding Prisoners of War: “Secret Prisons”, Part II,” which is available at: https://mid.ru/ru/detail-material-page/2082354/#_ftn1).

The characteristic features of these criminal acts cannot be overlooked.

Russian servicemen who have fallen into the hands of the AFU militants are subjected to brutal torture and abuse. Neo-Nazis openly post video evidence of their crimes on the Internet, in which they castrate prisoners, shoot them in the knees, and finish off the injured with shots to the head. They mock the corpses, gouge out their eyes, and record videos for the relatives of the murdered.

There is enough evidence of the use of torture against Russian soldiers in Ukrainian captivity.[31] This is also mentioned in the OHCHR reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine.

The UN Committee against Torture[32] had to pay attention to this problem when considering the Ukrainian report in May 2025 after a long break. Thus, the Committee expressed concern at allegations it received of torture, including sexual violence, ill-treatment, threats, humiliation and illegal deprivation of life and death in custody of Russian prisoners of war, as it noted, “allegedly committed by the Ukrainian armed forces and military police mainly in unofficial or transit places in several regions prior to their internment, although it notes the State party’s denial of the existence of such unofficial places.” CAT pointed to the lack of information on the procedural safeguards provided to captured prisoners of war. It also noted the inadequate recording of injuries of Russian soldiers sustained by torture or ill-treatment. In this regard, the Committee took note of the 20 investigations launched by the general prosecutor’s office of Ukraine into war crimes committed by the AFU and clearly indicated that it was expecting further information on their outcome.

It should be noted that CAT also pointed to a wide range of offenses related to torture and ill-treatment. Thus, the Committee’s experts were concerned about the information on torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detentions allegedly inflicted on the “conflict-related prisoners” charged with collaboration and other national security-related offenses by Ukrainian law enforcers. It is indicative that CAT singled out Ukrainian State Security Service officers from all representatives of law enforcement agencies who used torture against detainees, including to obtain confessions. According to CAT, torture was also used in unofficial prisons in several regions, although the experts noted the Ukraine’s negation of the existence of such unofficial places of detention. The Committee was also concerned about the alleged lack of adequate and prompt investigations into cases of torture, ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and incommunicado detention by the AFU in the “conflict zones in the east since 2014”. In this context, special mention was made of crimes committed by members of “Tornado,” “Aidar[33]” and “Azov[34]” national battalions. The Committee called on Kiev to provide it with additional information on the investigation of their crimes. The experts also noted that a number of cases were still pending on appeal and that only a handful of convictions had been delivered by May 2025. CAT also pointed to abuses committed by enlistment officers towards civilians and conscripts.

CAT also expressed concern about undue external influence and interference over the work of the judiciary of Ukraine through criminal charges against judges, which may have an impact on the work of judicial institutions, including the adjudication of cases of torture and ill-treatment. In this regard, the Committee called on Kiev to intensify its efforts to ensure the full independence, impartiality and effectiveness of the judiciary, in line with international standards, and guarantee that courts in the country were free to operate without undue pressure or interference in order to restore trust in the justice system.

The Committee’s experts did not overlook the lack of progress in the investigation in Ukraine of numerous incidents of the use of force in an excessive way, accompanied by ill-treatment on the part of the Ukrainian law enforcement authorities, including the police and security services officers, during apprehension and police custody. In particular, they noted with concern that such cases continued to be reported in Ukraine. The Committee also highlighted that a high number of criminal cases relating to the events and excessive use of force during the Maidan protests in Kiev from December 2013 to February 2014, and in Odessa and Mariupol in May 2014, were still pending at the pre-trial investigation stage or under judicial consideration. In this regard, the CAT noted reports that several defendants had fled the territory of Ukraine to avoid prosecution.

It is also revealing that the Kyiv regime’ officials refuse to publicly discuss not only the crimes of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants against Russian servicemen, but also their numerous crimes against their own soldiers and civilians – torture, rape, extortion, etc. For example, in April 2026, Ukraine’s Military Ombudsman O.Reshetilova acknowledged that she receives numerous complaints of illegal actions by Ukrainian Armed Forces units, including those that are constantly featured in the Ukrainian media. However, she does not publicly disclose information about these numerous crimes because she “does not want to undermine their image, reputation, character.” As Russian experts have justly noted, this reluctance can easily be explained: the ombudsman is afraid of them. The reputation of such units is well known in Ukraine, and this information cannot undermine their image. However, everyone also knows that Ukrainian neo-Nazis are seeking revenge on those who reveal what really happens within the Ukrainian neo-Nazi ranks.[35]

In Russia, crimes against civilians in the Donbass and Ukraine committed by the Kiev military and political leadership, nationalists and Ukrainian security forces since 2014 are recorded and investigated by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. As of 12 February 2026, some 9,177 criminal cases have already been initiated. Such crimes include genocide, terrorism, abuse of civilians, use of prohibited means and methods in armed conflict, murder, intentional destruction and damage to property (articles 205, 356, 105 and 167 of the Russian Criminal Code) and others. The defendants include over 2 thousand persons, including representatives of the AFU high command, and commanders of military units who gave criminal orders to shell civilians and civilian infrastructure.[36] The investigation of 877 criminal cases against 1,151 accused persons has been completed. Cases against 685 members of Ukrainian armed formations have been sent to court.[37] In total, since February 2022, based on completed investigations, convictions have been handed down in 483 criminal cases against 622 individuals. Criminal prosecution is being carried out against over 845 foreign citizens from 55 states who have participated in hostilities on the side of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.[38] 86 criminal cases have already been investigated, and 51 sentences have been handed down. 589 mercenaries have been put on the international wanted list.

Other criminal cases are still pending. The Investigative Committee of Russia investigates and provides a legal assessment of the actions of all persons involved in the crimes committed. Moreover, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is constantly working to collect, systematize and make public information on the crimes committed by the Kiev regime.

As we can see, it is precisely the servile willingness of the current Ukrainian leadership to destroy the history and memory of its country’s true, not fictitious, past to the detriment of the interests of its people, denying everything connected with Russia, that is the reason why its Western handlers are turning a blind eye to the neo-Nazi nature and crimes of the Kiev regime. History is replete with examples of the West’s nurturing of overtly racist and Nazi regimes. Their fate is well-known.

Glorification of Nazism

As for numerous human rights violations committed by the Kiev regime, special attention is to be paid to its efforts to glorify Nazism, which are manifested in many different ways and forms and constitute the basis of contemporary Ukrainian policy.

Thus, a policy of falsifying history and whitewashing Nazi criminals and fascist henchmen is being pursued at the State level in Ukraine. For these purposes, the Kiev regime has established a legal and regulatory framework.

In April 2015, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted a “decommunization package” of legal acts. In particular, the package include the law “On condemnation of communist and national-socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and ban on propaganda of their symbols,” “On access to archives of repressive bodies of communist totalitarian regime of 1917‑1991”, “On commemoration of victory over Nazism in World War II of 1939‑1945” and “On the legal status and commemoration of fighters for independence of Ukraine in the 20th century.”

These documents ban Soviet symbols, condemn the communist regime and disclose the archives of the Soviet special services, and recognize fighters of Ukrainian military nationalist groups of World War II – the OUN and the UPA[39] – and their leaders – OUN leader Stepan Bandera and UPA commander-in-chief Roman Shukhevich, who served in the Third Reich units (Nachtigall Battalion, 201st Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft Battalion) – as fighters for independence.

Furthermore, these laws criminalize the negative assessment of the activities of these structures, as well as the production, distribution and public use of symbols of the “communist totalitarian regime”.

Laws on “decommunization” affected such issues as the provision of benefits to former members of nationalist armed formations and the ban on the use of Soviet symbols, as well as symbols and insignia of the Red Army. In May 2017 the Ukrainian Code on Administrative Violations was amended to prohibit the public use, wearing or display of the ribbon of Saint George, (or Guards ribbon) or even pictures of it.

On 7 October 2015, in furtherance of the law “On condemnation of communist and national-socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and ban on propaganda of their symbols,” the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM) published a list of 520 names of historical figures that cannot be used in the names of streets and other toponyms.

The list includes the names of the founders of the international communist movement, persons who held leadership positions in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)/CPSU and the highest state bodies of the USSR, as well as the names of employees of the Cheka, GPU, NKVD, KGB, and figures of the 1917 revolution. It includes, among others, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Grigory (Sergo) Ordzhonikidze, Mikhail Frunze, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Vasily Chapaev, Georgy Zhukov, Leonid Brezhnev, Aleksandr Zasyadko, Vasily Kikvidze, and others.

As reported by the UINM, the list was created for the convenience of local authorities, who will be choosing new names in accordance with «decommunization» legislation.[40]

On 30 January 2018, in line with the provisions of the law “On the Legal Status and Honouring of the Memory of the Fighters for the Independence of Ukraine in the 20th Century”, Lvov Regional Council decided to use the flag of the OUN‑UPA on an equal basis with the state flag of Ukraine. Similar decisions were taken by the Volyn Regional Council, city councils in Ternopol, Kiev, and several other cities.[41]

In December 2018, the country adopted a law amending the law “On the Status of the War Veterans, Guarantees of Their Social Protection” (No. 2640-VIII), which essentially equated collaborators as “participants in the struggle for Ukraine’s independence in the 20th century” and veterans who fought on the side of the anti-Hitler coalition.[42]

On 22 May 2022, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted a law on withdrawing from the Agreement on Perpetuating the Memory of the Courage and Heroism of the Peoples of the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 of 3 September 2011.[43]

On 20 June 2023, Zelensky signed a law on the payment of pensions to political prisoners of Soviet times, including former Bandera and UPA fighters. Funds for the new payments will be taken from the cancelled pensions for Soviet figures and holders of Soviet awards and titles.

In 2023, Victory Day celebrations on 9 May were finally replaced at the official level by a day of reconciliation similar to European countries. On 8 May 2023, Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree stating that from this year 9 May shall be celebrated in Ukraine as Europe Day instead of the Day of Victory over Nazism in World War II, which revealed the true attitude of the Kiev regime to the significance of the Day of Victory over Nazism.

In addition, back in 2018, The Verkhovnaya Rada approved the OUN nationalists’ slogan “Glory to Ukraine! – Glory to Heroes!” which copies the well-known Nazi salute.

Statements in support of Nazism and hate speech

A major example of Kiev’s state policy aimed at “preserving national memory” is the inclusion of commemorative dates and anniversaries of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators in the resolutions adopted by the Verkhovnaya Rada on an annual basis. The persons whose anniversaries are celebrated in Ukraine include Andrey Melnik, Yaroslav Stetsko, Ulas Samchuk, Aleksandr Vyshnivsky, Vasily Galas, Vladimir Kubiyovich, Yaroslav Starukh, Nikolay Kapustyansky, Vladimir Shchigelsky, Dmitry Klyachkovsky, Stepan Lenkavsky and many other criminals.

Detailed lists of such resolutions and the Ukrainian nationalist figures mentioned in them are provided in the joint reports of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus “Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries”, published in 2024-2025, as well as in the annual Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices that Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

In this regard, it should be noted that during the years of “independence” many monuments, memorial plaques and other sites glorifying these and many other Nazi collaborators have been erected on the territory of Ukraine. Many streets have been named after Ukrainian collaborators, in particular as part of the intensified process of changing the names of topographical objects associated with Russia.[44] A very detailed list of sites commemorating Ukrainian collaborators, including those who participated in the mass murder of Jews, Russians, Roma and other civilians, women, children and the elderly, is available on the website of The Forward, a project dedicated to the study of monuments honouring Nazi collaborationists in a number of countries around the world.[45]

Officials from Ukraine have regularly and openly declared their admiration for Nazi leaders. Earlier, Ukrainian officials published Nazi and Bandera symbols, images and flags.[46]

The tone of the Nazi-like statements is set by the country’s leadership – in an interview published on 5 August 2021, President Zelensky advised Russians to get out of Ukraine.

On 8 March 2022, former acting president, chairman of the Verkhovnaya Rada and secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine (NSDC) Aleksandr Turchinov called in social networks to “kill Russians wherever possible, not only in Ukraine, but also outside of it – on the territory of Russia.”[47] Examples of other similar statements are provided in the second Russian-Belarusian report.

Vladimir Zelensky regularly makes derogatory and hateful statements about Russian citizens and the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

On 5 January 2025, Zelensky said in an interview with American blogger Lex Friedman: “I do not respect either the leader or director of today’s Russia, or these people… I sincerely despise them.”[48]

On 27 March 2025, during a press conference broadcast by an all-Ukrainian telethon, Vladimir Zelensky called Russians “dinosaurs” and said that they just wanted to eat Ukrainians.[49]

On 24 December 2025, in his Christmas address, Vladimir Zelensky, although without naming names but clearly hinting, wished death upon the President of Russia: “Today, we all share one dream. And we all make the same wish. So that he [Vladimir Putin] dies,” each will say to themselves.”[50]

On 5 January 2026, the new Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language of Ukraine, Elena Ivanovskaya (appointed on 15 July 2025), stated that “all Ukrainians who consider themselves Homo sapiens (reasonable beings)” have switched from Russian “to the Ukrainian language.”[51]

On 7 January 2026, following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the American authorities, Vladimir Zelensky called on the United States to land troops in Chechnya and capture Ramzan Kadyrov: “Russia may turn its nose up, but some of our partners can screw it off if they want to <…> Everyone saw the result. Let them [the USA] carry out some operation with that, what’s his name, with Kadyrov, with that murderer. Maybe then Putin will see it and think twice.”[52]

On 22 January 2026, speaking at the Davos Forum, Vladimir Zelensky emphasized: “The fact remains: [Venezuela’s President Nicolás] Maduro is on trial in New York. Sorry, but [Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin is not on trial.” (Reuters).

On 14 February 2026, in an interview with Politico, Vladimir Zelensky stated: “I am a free man, and I am younger than Putin, you know. No, no, believe me, this is important. He doesn’t have much time left, God willing, that there won’t be much time left.”[53]

It should be noted that these steps by Ukrainian representatives have drawn the attention of the international community. Back in 2016, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed its concern about a rise in racist hate speech and discriminatory statements in the public discourse in Ukraine, including by public and political figures, in the media, in particular on the Internet and during rallies, directed mainly against minorities.[54] After that, international organizations mostly tended to overlook such manifestations in Ukraine.

The spread of neo-Nazism and the activities of radical groups in Ukraine have been highlighted also by foreign politicians. Following their visit to Kiev in May 2021, a group of French senators stated that the activity of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine was of concern. As the senators explained, in the midst of a fair within the Kiev Day celebrations in the centre of the capital, they unexpectedly came across a pavilion where members of the neo-Nazi “Azov” battalion[55] were teaching children how to assemble and disassemble weapons. The pavilion was also used to sign up volunteers to fight in the Donbass and featured an improvised shooting range. As part of their so-called performance, Ukrainian radicals offered young people to shoot at a paper Kremlin. Nearby, one could find stalls offering IDs of Nazi soldiers from World War II, swastikas and other paraphernalia. Senator Nathalie Goulet, who personally witnessed all this, sent a parliamentary inquiry to the French Foreign Ministry. After that, the Security Service of Ukraine launched an investigation against this group of French senators.[56] The French Foreign Ministry, however, saw nothing alarming in this situation and in its reply to Goulet’s enquiry noted that “there are neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine”, but their popularity “does not exceed the European average”.[57] If this is true, and the “average level” of neo-Nazi popularity in Europe has reached the Ukrainian level, then Europe itself, including France and its foreign policy agency, needs to think seriously about its bleak future.

In other words, Ukraine enjoying the silent encouragement by “the collective West” ignores the concerns of the international community and continues to actively promote the neo-Nazi ideology.

Holding events honouring Nazis and their collaborators

In Ukraine, it is not uncommon for officials at various levels to organize events and public actions glorifying Hitler’s Germany, the German Nazis and their collaborators. Relevant examples are provided in the second joint report of the foreign ministries of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on human rights issues.

Moreover, there were media reports that militants from “Azov,” “Aidar,” and other nationalist units, captured by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, wear swastikas, chevrons and symbols of the Nazi battalions of the Waffen‑SS, have relevant tattoos and openly read and propagate Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”[58], [59], [60]

Recently, Nazi symbols on Ukrainian servicemen have increasingly come to the attention of the Western media.

Ukrainian government representatives have also been seen using Nazi insignia. Vladimir Zelensky, for one, illustrated his Victory Day greetings to the public on 9 May 2022 (posted in his Telegram account) with a photograph showing a Ukrainian soldier with the SS Totenkopf emblem on his chest. After the scandal broke, the picture was promptly removed from the post. At the same time, the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, which used a similar photo of a serviceman with symbols of the Nazi SS Totenkopf division, did not remove it.

In October 2025, journalists analysed the social media accounts of Anton Radko, deputy commander of the 1st Mechanized Battalion of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (former neo-Nazi “Azov” regiment),[61] and revealed his active display of tattoos with Nazi symbols, including swastikas and the emblem of the SS Totenkopf Panzer Division.[62] He likes to accompany his photos, in which the militant poses against the backdrop of a monument to Stepan Bandera, with quotes from Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and the collaborationist Roman Shukhevich His account also contained publicly displayed desecrated Orthodox icons.

In November 2025, Vladimir Zelensky presented awards to National Guard servicemen whose uniforms bore patches with Nazi symbols.[63] Photographs published on his social media show the head of the Kiev regime shaking hands with militants in uniforms bearing black-and-red patches with SS emblems, while in the hall where the award ceremony took place, a banner hung bearing an almost exact copy of the symbol from the chevron of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich.”

Every year on 1 January in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities torch processions are held to mark the birthday of OUN leader Stepan Bandera. They are accompanied by the shouting of nationalist slogans and the display of Nazi salutes and symbols. As of 2019, this date is “celebrated” at the state level.

On 1 January 2025, another torch procession honouring Stepan Bandera took place in Lvov.[64], [65] This same disgraceful event took place there again on 1 January 2026. But for these neo-Nazis, that was no longer enough. Ukrainian radicals who have settled in Austria decided to hold a celebration in the centre of Vienna in honour of the Nazi collaborator.[66] The Russian Embassy in Austria lodged an official protest with the Austrian Foreign Ministry, emphasizing the unacceptability of encouraging such neo-Nazi manifestations.

Kiev is also making efforts to glorify religious figures who collaborated with the Hitlerites. In particular, the glorification of the Uniate Metropolitan Andrey Sheptitsky, who headed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) in the first half of the 20th century, is underway in Ukraine. Monuments are being unveiled in his honour, streets in various cities of the country are being named after him, and academic conferences and television programs are being dedicated to him. In addition, the Kiev regime continues its attempts to persuade the Roman Catholic Church to canonize Andrey Sheptitsky. In particular, Vladimir Zelensky spoke about this during his meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on 9 July 2025.[67] The news came in the context of statements by the UGCC that the process of beatification (canonization) of Andrey Sheptitsky is in its final stage.[68] Meanwhile, this issue was already raised back in February 2003 during a meeting of Ukrainian Uniate bishops with officials of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. At the same time, facts are known regarding Andrey Sheptitsky’s support for the Austro-Hungarian government during the First World War, including the preparation of recommendations concerning the policy of the Austro-German command in the event of the occupation of Ukraine and its subsequent existence as part of Austria-Hungary, as well as calls by the head of the UGCC for the formation of Ukrainian Sich Riflemen.[69] There also exists a multitude of facts confirming the collaboration of the UGCC and its head with the Nazis and Ukrainian Bandera nationalists during the Great Patriotic War, ranging from Andrey Sheptitsky’s welcome of the Hitlerite takeover of Ukraine, his calls for labour “for the benefit of the Reich,” and up to his correspondence with Adolf Hitler, participation in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, and instructions to rectors of churches to assist the German authorities and transfer church property for the needs of the German army.

Activities of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory

A notable role in the inculcation of neo-Nazism is played by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM), which – following the example of its predecessors in the Baltic countries – carries out work in a number of areas, including the promotion of legislative initiatives to glorify the fascist henchmen of the OUN and UPA and to honour the memory of members of the Ukrainian “liberation movement”, publishing “patriotic” literature and methodological recommendations for secondary and higher educational institutions, holding various events and festivals involving UPA veterans, participants in the so-called anti-terrorist operation in south-eastern Ukraine and Ukrainian “pro-banderite” historians, including the Bandershtat festival dedicated to the Nazi collaborators. Such figures of Ukrainian nationalism as Simon Petlyura, Evgeny Konovalets, Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevich, Yaroslav Stetsko and Andrey Melnik and others continue to be persistently promoted as model citizens for the society. Supporters of neo-Nazi ideology and ideologically driven Russophobes are traditionally appointed to the position of director of the UINM.[70] This applies as well to its current director Aleksandr Alferov, former participant of the terrorist “Azov” battalion. In July 2025, in his first interview after being appointed to the position, he made an offensive statement in an interview about the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the Russian people. In particular, he stated that Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler cannot be compared, because the latter “was brought up on high culture”: “How can one compare a man who received a German education, who was an artist, who was raised on the philosophy and, indeed, the culture of Germany – high culture – and compare him to these people? No way. They are people one cannot compare.”[71] Furthermore, Aleksandr Alferov made derogatory statements about the Russian people: “How can one compare the German people, raised in the spirit of law and obedience, with Protestant or Catholic, in general, a powerful Christian ethic, with a people who live there, in the East, with goblins? Well, they do have their own name – Russians, of course. You know, when they started saying – Orcs, Orcs… No, they are not Orcs. Orcs are former Elves. And these ones are Russians indeed.”[72]

Thus, at the start of the year 2017, the Institute unveiled its propaganda project “UPA: Response of the Unconquered People,” timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of this criminal organization’s establishment, a vivid illustration of its policy. Despite the fact that more than 70 per cent of UPA officers were former Nazi henchmen – fighters in collaborationist groups – and its commanders were members of the Schutzmannschaft, auxiliary police forces until 1943, the UINP leadership characterized it as an anti-Nazi entity. According to the UINP report for 2018, within the framework of the project “UPA: Response of the Unconquered People”, events (photo exhibitions, lectures, seminars) were held in educational institutions, military units, and state institutions, the actions were aimed at popularization of the activities of UPA militants. The UINP also released a Board game that glorified members of the Bandera bandit groups for propaganda purposes.[73] In July 2019, the Ukrainian Ministry of Education recommended the game for use in schools.[74]

The Institute reconstructs “Rebel Awards”, which are awarded to “participants of the “Ukrainian Liberation Movement”, as well as to relatives of deceased “liberators”. For the Victory Day, UINM prepared methodical books with recommendations on how to cover the holiday, which contained distorted historical facts. Among other things, they hold the Soviet Union equally responsible with Nazi Germany for unleashing the World War II, in direct contradiction to the verdicts of the Nuremberg Tribunal.[75]

In 2025, a mocking manual prepared by the UINM for 9 May was published online, in which veterans of the Great Patriotic War were warned about the responsibility for wearing Soviet orders and medals and were recommended to hide their blood-earned awards on the inside of their jackets, so as not to embarrass the “sensitive” views of the descendants of the Nazi followers who lost that war.[76]

A highly illustrative example concerning the consideration in Ukrainian courts of the issue of recognizing the symbolism of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division as Nazi and prohibiting the UINM from disseminating “falsifications” on this matter is provided in the second joint report of the foreign ministries of Russia and Belarus.[77] It should be noted that as a result of these proceedings, the symbolism of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division is formally no longer considered in Ukraine as Nazi. The decisions of the Ukrainian courts contradict the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which recognized the SS troops, which included Waffen‑SS Galicia Division, as a criminal organization. During the Great Patriotic War, its members participated in punitive actions, killed Soviet soldiers and civilians, put down uprisings in Warsaw and Slovakia, and fought against Yugoslav partisans.

Promotion on neo-Nazi ideology in education

Kiev implemented a “new” policy of patriotic education for young people based on militant Russophobia, instilling the ideology of nationalism and xenophobia in the younger generations, and praising Ukrainian Nazi accomplices posing as members of the national liberation movement after the nationalist forces took control of Ukraine as a result of an armed coup d’état in February 2014 and the outbreak of military conflict in Donbass. The basis for these programs was laid down in the Strategy for National and Patriotic education for 2020-2025, approved in May 2019.[78], [79] And although it has now formally lost its force, the guidelines enshrined in it were reflected in the Concept of National-Patriotic Education in the Education System (approved by Order No. 527 of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine dated 6 June 2022), as well as in the Strategy for Affirming Ukrainian National and Civic Identity for the Period up to 2030 (approved by Resolution No. 1322 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine dated 15 December 2023).

According to this document, education should be based on “examples of the heroic struggle” of the Ukrainian people for the “establishment of sovereignty,” passed down from the Cossacks, the Sich Streltsy, the Ukrainian and Western Ukrainian People’s Republics, participants in the anti-Bolshevik uprisings, the Karpatskaya Sich units, the UPA, the dissident movement, the participants of the “Orange Revolution,” “Maidan,” the so-called “Anti-Terrorist Operation,” etc.

According to the strategy, the affirmation of Ukrainian identity is to be achieved, among other means, through the formation of a “defence consciousness of the population” and the “preparation of citizens for resistance.” This fully applies as well to work with young people. The organization of military-patriotic education must include basic military training, and the formation of “psychological, physical, and moral-spiritual readiness” for service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. An effective tool for achieving these goals is said to be the all-Ukrainian children’s and youth military-patriotic game “Sokol” (“Dzhura”), which has been held for many years in Ukraine. Instructors there are thugs – former participants of the ATO.

On 21 August 2025, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted the Law No. 4579-IX on the Principles of State Policy on the National Memory of the Ukrainian People (came into force from 1 January 2026), which develops the so-called decommunization legislation and definitively establishes neo-Nazism as the fundamental state ideology. This law imposes the narrative of the formation of Ukrainian identity as a result of the “liberation” struggle against “foreign domination” in the 20th century and the “war for independence” against “the aggression of the Russian Federation starting from 19 February 2014.”

Any attempts to challenge the myths of the national-radicals are now qualified by the Ukrainian regime as the dissemination of “unreliable information about the history of Ukraine” and are equated to “anti-Ukrainian propaganda.” Repressive functionality to identify violations is assigned to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory with the status of the central executive body. The biased nature of future “verdicts” is obvious. In other words, the Kiev top brass has expanded its arsenal of means to combat political opponents.

Typical is the consistency of the Zelensky regime in its attempts to erase the people’s memory of the decisive contribution of the USSR to the defeat of the Third Reich and the liberation of Europe from Nazism. The history extremists entrenched in Kiev openly set the goal of destroying tens of thousands of monuments to Soviet soldiers – the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers of the residents of Ukraine. According to the new regulation, “memorial objects,” including graves, are now not permitted to bear Soviet or pre-revolutionary symbols, including images of the St. George ribbon, battle banners, state awards of the USSR, as well as the name “Great Patriotic War.” The listed items are subject to mandatory “alignment,” or in other words, dismantling within one year after the law enters into force.

Among the most odious provisions of the document is the equating of orders and medals of the Petlyurite “Ukrainian People’s Republic” and the “Ukrainian Main Liberation Council” under the OUN and UPA to state awards.

Distorted interpretations of historical events are aimed at cultivating nationalist sentiments among the general population, especially young people. The so-called new national idea of Ukraine, which is founded on propaganda of hatred against the Russian people and Russia, is practically the only lens through which information is presented in school textbooks. The Russian state is portrayed throughout history as the invader and brutal executioner, while Ukraine itself is shown as the sufferer.

In accordance with the official interpretation of history, the educational literature was also “corrected”. The facts proving the collaboration of Ukrainian nationalists were emasculated. For example, the Ministry of Education and Science demanded the recall of history textbooks for 10th and 11th grades, which contain information about the cooperation of Roman Shukhevich and the “Roland” and “Nachtigall” battalions with the Nazi German army during World War II.[80]

The policy of honouring the Nazis and their collaborators is becoming a negative influence on a significant part of Ukrainians, as indicated by sociological monitoring data, among other things. According to a sociological survey conducted by the “Democratic Initiatives” Foundation, the majority of Ukrainians (52 per cent) celebrate the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War on 9 May. At the same time, 56 per cent of respondents already agree that both Nazi Germany and the USSR are responsible for unleashing the bloodiest conflict in the history of mankind. It is worth noting that only 32.2 per cent of those surveyed chose the option that the war was World War II, not the Great Patriotic War, and was won by the anti-Hitler coalition. Almost 40 per cent of respondents support the status quo, where both Victory Day and Remembrance and Reconciliation Day are considered as public holidays.[81]

For more details on the inculcation of Nazi ideology among the younger generations of Ukrainians, as well as on the involvement of right-wing radical and ultra-nationalist groups in “patriotic work” with young people and the state support provided to them, see previous reports of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as the annual Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices that Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

For a long time, members of the neo-Nazi “Azov” battalion[82] have been engaged in recruiting children into the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist formations, as well as raising them in a spirit of hatred for everything Russian. They took over the Pilgrim orphanage in what was then Ukrainian Mariupol. “Azov” militants’ mentoring consisted of long-term military training for children in the orphanage, harsh punishments for any mistake, and exhausting physical training sessions. Particular attention was paid to hand-to-hand combat, girls were taught mostly sniper training. At the same time, the ideological conditioning of the pupils, based on Russophobia, antisemitism, and the glorification of Nazi Germany, was carried out. This topic did not go unnoticed in newspapers in the West.[83]

Construction of monuments to the Nazis

The Kiev regime continues to erect monuments and memorial signs in honour of the OUN-UPA militants and pay tribute to the former Nazis who are still alive today. According to a survey on monuments to fascists, Nazis and Nazi collaborators in various countries, by the American newspaper The Forward, Ukraine has the highest number of such monuments in the world.[84] As of December 2022, almost 50 monuments were set up in different regions of the country only to Stepan Bandera. Over 500 streets, lanes and avenues across Ukraine were named in honour of this criminal.

The largest marches of ultranationalists are held in connection with the date of the founding of the UPA and the birthday of Stepan Bandera. The date of the creation of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division is also commemorated. The radicals taking part in such rallies use hate speech, mostly against Russians, and perform acts of provocation.

The Ukrainian authorities honour former Nazis. Solemn reburials of the remains of UPA members and other eliminated punishers are regularly held in the country.[85]

Among recent examples of the glorification of Nazism, the following should be mentioned.

On 30 January 2026, “with the aim of restoring the historical traditions of the national army, Vladimir Zelensky issued a decree naming the 190th Training Centre of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine after “General-Cornet” Vasily Kuk, the last commander-in-chief of the UPA.[86]

Right-wing radicals in Ukraine, feeling the official authorities’ support and realizing their impunity, actively use violence and intimidation against political opponents, civil society activists, human rights defenders, journalists, and put pressure on the authorities in order to make decisions that benefit them.[87], [88]

After the start of the special military operation, many representatives of Ukrainian far-right organizations took part in hostilities.[89] Their crimes have taken on an entirely different scale, evolving from unlawful acts of violence to the murder of civilians in the territories occupied by the Kiev regime, as well as the torture, ill-treatment and murder of captured Russian military.

Desecration of the memory of Red Army soldiers: obstruction of the Victory Day celebrations, demolition of monuments to fallen Red Army soldiers

Considering the official Kiev’s course to glorify Nazism, the Ukrainian authorities have in every possible way prevented public anti-fascist activists and millions of ordinary citizens from celebrating 9 May and other memorable dates of the Great Patriotic War, including using nationalists and right-wing radicals for these purposes. There has usually been no action taken against the threats targeting anti-fascist activists. The Ukrainian law enforcement officers did not stop these offenders’ unlawful actions or bring them to justice, instead allowing the radicals to hide.[90]

Despite all this, on 9 May 2024, Ukrainians brought flowers to the Eternal Flame in Kiev’s Park of Glory and in other cities, as it was before.[91] At the same time, the police prevented pensioners who came in Soviet uniforms of the Great Patriotic War times, from laying flowers. Two administrative protocols were drawn up in the capital for wearing Soviet symbols. In Ternopol, a 1947-year-born man wearing the Saint George’s ribbon on his clothes was detained.[92]

It came to the point that on 3 May 2025, Vladimir Zelensky made actual threats of terrorist attacks during the parade in Moscow, stating that he could not guarantee the safety of those who would come to the Russian capital city for the celebrations.[93] Head of the Ukraine’s Presidential Office Andrey Yermak reposted in social networks a picture of Vladimir Zelensky standing in the background of the burning Kremlin with a quote from the Soviet song “Victory Day”: “We hastened this day as best we could”.[94]

In parallel with honouring Nazi collaborators and vilifying the memory of Red Army soldiers, the Ukrainian authorities are working to demolish monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators. Right-wing radicals have joined local authorities in their “war” on monuments to Red Army soldiers and victims of WWII tragic events, including the Holocaust. Until 2022, such instances were put on record by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and entered into the unified pre-trial investigation register. However, the perpetrators of these blasphemous acts were never brought to justice.

The destruction of monuments to Soviet soldiers has reached massive proportions since 2022. Such actions have been often accompanied by insulting statements from local authorities.

Details of such actions are presented in the previous report of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation and the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as in the report of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation Regarding the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices That Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

The following example demonstrates the scale of monuments’ destruction. On 30 January 2024, Maksim Kozitskiy, head of the Lvov regional military administration, announced via his official Telegram account that local authorities had removed all monuments honouring soldiers who fought against Nazism in the region, with 312 monuments demolished in 2023 alone.

Notable cases concerning removing of memorials in 2025, which honoured Soviet soldiers who died fighting fascism include:

On 15 January 2025, the Lvov City Council approved a decision to exhume the remains of Red Army soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War and were buried at the Hill of Glory. This concerned over 200 individual graves, four mass graves, and the burials of Heroes of the Soviet Union, including intelligence officer Nikolay Kuznetsov.[95]

On 24 April 2025, Lvov authorities began implementing these barbaric intentions and destroyed a mass grave of 1,804 Soviet soldiers who died liberating the city from the Nazis and were buried at the Field of Mars. Formally, this act of vandalism was called the exhumation of soldiers’ and officers’ remains for reburial at Lvov’s Goloskovsky Cemetery. However, this exhumation was carried out using excavators, with the soldiers’ bones collected in bags and sent to a warehouse. Lvov authorities justified their disregard for the remains of Soviet soldiers by claiming that the graves might contain servicemen of the USSR People’s Commissariat for Internal Affair who died in battles against OUN-UPA units. It is illustrative that the theoretical and ideological justification for the action was entrusted to Svyatoslav Sheremeta, head of the “Dolya” Memorial Search Centre, who gained notoriety for wearing a specially tailored SS Galicia Division uniform during a 2019 reburial ceremony for its fighters.[96]

The Lvov City Council’s website described the purpose of the event in the following manner: “The remains of Soviet Army servicemen and individuals from the World War II period will be reburied from the Field of Mars on Mechnikov Street. This decision was made by the Executive Committee of the Lvov City Council. A memorial complex for Heroes of Ukraine will be established at this site, in memory of Ukrainian soldiers who gave their lives for Ukraine’s independence.” Given the openly propagated policy of the current Kiev authorities to rehabilitate Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators, there is little doubt about who these “heroes” will be.

In this context, it should be noted that the first exhumation of Soviet soldiers in Lvov began in March 2023, with reports claiming 459 burials were uncovered. This was reported, in particular, by journalist Oleg Khavich from “Ukraina.ru.” Media also reported that the exhumed remains of Soviet soldiers were being stored in bags at a warehouse by local authorities “for further decisions.”

On 16 July 2025, Lvov Mayor Andrey Sadovy said in his Telegram account that the Hill of Glory memorial no longer exists, and the exhumed remains of 355 Soviet soldiers, including the ashes of Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolay Kuznetsov, are supposed to be buried at Goloskovsky Cemetery. He offered to exchange Soviet soldiers’ exhumed remains for the Ukrainian military.[97]

In addition to these acts of vandalism, the following should be mentioned.

In February 2025, in Nikolayev, Ukrainian Nazis destroyed a monument to Hero of the Soviet Union, intelligence officer, and leader of the local anti-fascist underground, Viktor Lyagin, who was executed by the Nazis in July 1943.[98]

On 6 February 2025, in Kharkov, a memorial plaque dedicated to the Soviet military commander Pavel Rybalko – a native of the Kharkov Oblast who participated in the liberation of Ukraine from the Nazis – was dismantled.[99]

On 17 May 2025, in Odessa, neo-Nazis smashed a memorial plaque dedicated to General Leonid Bocharov, who participated in the defence of Odessa and Sevastopol.[100]

On 18 May 2025, in the town of Akhtyrka, Sumy Oblast, they destroyed the commemorative inscription on a monument in honour of heroes of the Soviet Union who liberated the Ukrainian land from the Nazi German invaders.[101]

In May 2025, in Odessa, local residents prevented nationalists from removing a memorial plaque on Geroev Pogranichnikov Street, dedicated to fallen Soviet border guards.[102]

At the same time (in May 2025), nationalists who had come to Odessa from other regions of Ukraine removed a memorial plaque in honour of the graduates of the special artillery school who had fought against the Nazis, and also damaged a memorial plaque in honour of a native of the city – the legendary Soviet submarine sailor Aleksandr Marinesko.[103]

In May 2025, in the village of Sursko-Litovskoye, Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, local authorities and radicals dismantled a memorial sign dedicated to fellow villagers who died in battles against the fascist invaders; in the village of Kovyagi, Kharkov Oblast, they removed the Order of the Patriotic War from a monument at a mass grave of soldiers who fell for the liberation of their native land from the Nazis.[104] In Glukhov, Sumy Oblast, by decision of the authorities, a memorial plaque from a monument dedicated to students and teachers who died in battles against the Nazis was demolished in the courtyard of a local school.

On 9 May 2025, in Odessa, Ukrainian Nazis tore off a memorial plaque from a monument to a native of the city, Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky.[105]

On 27 May 2025, by decision of the Lvov authorities, the columns at the entrance to the “Hill of Glory” memorial complex were destroyed, where the barbaric exhumation of the remains of Soviet soldiers-liberators continues.

On the night of 22 June 2025, in Lyubotin, Kharkov Oblast, “decolonizers” tore down a memorial plaque installed in memory of local residents – victims of fascism.[106]

In July 2025, in Irpen, authorities destroyed the inscription “Glory to the fallen heroes” on a monument at a mass grave of soldiers who died during the liberation of the Kiev Oblast from the Nazis.

Also in July 2025, in the villages of Belskaya Volya and Veliky Rakovets in the Rovno and Transcarpathian Oblasts, the dates marking the beginning and end of the Great Patriotic War were removed from monuments to Red Army soldiers.[107]

In October 2025, the Odessa authorities dismantled a memorial plaque in honour of the Soviet submariner Aleksandr Marinesko, who sank numerous Hitlerite ships. This monument had previously been repeatedly vandalized by radicals.[108]

In January 2026, neo-Nazis demolished a monument to Soviet soldiers-liberators in the city of Vyshnyovoye, Kiev Oblast. In Nikolayev, they painted a memorial stone dedicated to soldiers who fell in battles against the fascists in the colours of the Bandera flag.[109]

On 30 January 2026, at the Museum of World War II in Kiev, the inscription in Russian “Their names are immortal, their deeds will live forever,” which was dedicated to fallen Soviet soldiers, was removed.[110]

At the same time, there are isolated examples where residents of Ukrainian settlements refuse to demolish monuments to Soviet soldiers. This happens most often in rural areas. There, monuments are usually located at mass graves where soldiers who gave their live for that town or village are buried. Local conscripts mobilized in 1943-1944, as well as partisans often appear to be buried among them. Their relatives still live in the same village. For example, a similar incident occurred in the village of Smykov on 12 December 2023, when equipment was brought into the village to demolish the monument to Red Army soldiers. The village head, whose father was buried there, did not permit it and protected the monument to Soviet soldiers by hiding it behind his back.[111]

On 22 April 2023, residents of the village of Lisichevo, Transcarpathian Oblast, refused to demolish the monument to Soviet soldiers who perished during the Great Patriotic War. They said that the “monument was to commemorate their fellow villagers and not some Soviet soldier”, and therefore, the demolition of the monument would depreciate their heroic deeds during the war time and their lives per se.[112]

There are also known cases where, according to documents, a monument was supposedly demolished, but in reality, it still stands. Examples include three monuments in the Chervonograd district of the Lvov Oblast.[113]

On 1 December 2023, the media reported that residents of the villages of Kinashev and Zagorye-Kukolnitskoye, Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast, refused to dismantle monuments to Soviet soldiers. The villagers held a meeting during which they opposed the demolition of the monuments. It was noted that the monuments had names of victims of the OUN and UPA but the inscription saying “They died by the hands of the Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists” was effaced of the monument.[114]

“Decommunisation” and “derussification”

Ukrainian radicals have targeted not only memorials honouring Red Army soldiers who fought against Nazis and Ukrainian nationalists but also monuments dedicated to representatives of Russian culture and great figures from the Russian Empire era.

It should be noted that the fight against monuments in Ukraine did not begin after the 2014 coup, when the most intense and active phase of this “fight” (aside from the current one) began. As early as the 1990s, a wave of demolitions of monuments to Vladimir Lenin swept the country. During the first decade after the collapse of the USSR, over 2,000 such monuments were destroyed in Ukraine, primarily in its western regions. Then, at the turn of the 1990s and 2000s, more than 600 Lenin monuments were dismantled in its western and central regions, and from 2005 to 2008, over 600 monuments were removed, mostly in central regions. Another wave of demolitions in 2013-2014 began with an attack by so-called Euromaidan “activists” on the Vladimir Lenin monument on Bessarabskaya Square. In total, 552 monuments were destroyed.[115]

After the launch of the “decommunization” process on 15 May 2015, by then-President of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring), which aimed to eliminate all communist monuments except those dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, a new wave of demolitions followed. Less than two years later, on 16 January 2017, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP) reported the dismantling of 1,320 Lenin monuments.

In addition to monument demolitions, the “decommunization” pursued by Kiev from the outset primarily involved renaming settlements and streets, as well as removing commemorative signs and images associated with the Soviet past.

According to official data, over six years (from 2015 to 2021), 52,000 toponyms were changed, 987 settlements were renamed, and more than 2,500 Soviet-era monuments were dismantled.

Two regional centres received, inter alia, new names.[116] Dnepropetrovsk was turned into Dnipro, although opinion polls showed that 90% of the city’s residents opposed the renaming, and Kirovograd was renamed after the playwright Mark Kropivnitsky, who “distinguished himself” by refusing to translate his works into Russian, and here too the majority of residents were against the renaming.

It is quite indicative that in recent years in Ukraine, the geographic names have been increasingly renamed after Nazi collaborators and Holocaust participants, including Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevich, Evgueny Konovalets, Pyotr Dyachenko, etc., as well as terrorists.

Therefore, as far as in 2021, the Kiev Municipal authorities put efforts to rename some streets in the city to call them after Nazi accomplices. As it was mentioned above, the General Vatutin Prospect was renamed to Roman Shukhevich Prospect, Moskovsky Prospect to Stepan Bandera Prospect, Druzhby Narodov Boulevard in Kiev to Boulevard of Nikolai Mikhnovsky (one of the major Ukrainian nationalism ideologists, author of the chauvinistic slogan “Ukraine for Ukrainians!”) and the street named after Marshall Malinovsky received the name of the modern Ukrainian neo-Nazi militarized unit, i.e. the Heroes of the “Azov” Regiment.[117]

In 2022, the Verkhovnaya Rada provoked a new wave of renaming by starting to consider a draft law that would ban geographical names in Ukraine related to Russia, its history and prominent personalities.

In 2023, Ukrainian authorities continued “derussification”, and in January, they submitted a corresponding draft law to the Verkhovnaya Rada, aimed at legalizing the fight against “hundreds of Pushkin street names” and “reducing the influence of Russian narratives.” According to Minister of Culture Aleksandr Tkachenko, the document would enable Ukrainian authorities to promptly rename streets with Russian names and demolish monuments to Russian figures.[118] On 27 July 2023, this law, passed by the Verkhovnaya Rada on 21 March 2023, under the title on the Condemnation and Prohibition of Propaganda of Russian Imperial Policy in Ukraine and the Decolonization of Toponymy,” came into force. Within six months from that date, by 27 January 2024, local self-government bodies and military administrations were required to clear public spaces of “symbols of the Russian world”: dismantle monuments and commemorative signs, and rename streets and other objects.

The renaming is proceeding at a very rapid pace. According to the interim results published by some Ukrainian regions at the end of January 2024, 2028 toponymic objects have been renamed in Poltava Oblast alone since 2022, and another 772 objects still have to be renamed.[119] During 2024, over a thousand more objects were renamed in the Poltava Oblast.[120]

At the end of July 2024, the head of the Odessa Regional Military Administration Oleg Kiper signed an order to rename 84 place names in Odessa. On his social media, he called the city “a Ukrainian place” that was allegedly “created, built and developed by Ukrainians.”[121]

On 19 September 2024, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine adopted the Resolution on renaming 328 settlements.[122]

In November 2024, the UINM reported that in the year since the law on the Condemnation and Prohibition of Propaganda of Russian Imperial Policy in Ukraine and the Decolonization of Toponymy came into force, i.e., from 27 July 2023 to 27 July 2024, at least 25,194 toponymic objects were renamed across the country, and 1,066 monuments and commemorative signs were dismantled.[123]

In June 2025, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted a decision to rename an additional 328 settlements as part of “decommunization” and “decolonization.”[124]

In October 2025, the UINM stated that the names of regional branches of Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways) constitute elements of propaganda for Russian imperial policy.[125] According to its experts, the current designations of the Ukrzaliznytsia branches “South-Western Railway” and “Southern Railway” are calques of Russian names and do not meet the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On the Condemnation and Prohibition of Propaganda of Russian Imperial Policy in Ukraine and the Decolonization of Toponymy,” and therefore are subject to “decolonization” and “derussification.”

Activists note that the full-scale war conducted by the Kiev regime against public symbols, memorials and names associated with Russia, October revolution, Soviet history and left ideology requires huge amounts of money. For instance, the leader of the Ukrainian party “Union of Left Forces of Ukraine – For New Socialism,” Maxim Goldarb, cited data indicating that the cost of one new street nameplate for a single building is 1,000 gryvnias (equivalent to approximately 25 euros). Multiplying this by dozens (and sometimes hundreds) of buildings on a single street results in a considerable amount of money for just that street. Accordingly, the cost increases when accounting for tens of thousands of renamed streets across the country, as well as over 1,000 renamed cities and villages. In addition, there are many other cost components. These include the need to replace documents, seals, stamps, and entrance signs for all institutions and enterprises. New road signs, directional markers, and signs at city entrances and highways across Ukraine are also required. Furthermore, new maps and atlases must be provided to numerous institutions, not only in the renamed cities but throughout the country. And the entire current campaign of renaming and demolishing monuments throughout the country, according to the most conservative estimates, has cost more than one billion euros.[126]

There are known examples where residents or authorities in certain settlements opposed the demolition of monuments and the renaming of streets associated with Russia or the USSR. For instance, in April 2022, the Kharkov administration refused to support a public appeal to demolish a bust of Aleksandr Pushkin and move it to a city museum. The Kharkov Department of Culture reported that the monument is listed in the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine as a monument of monumental art of national significance. At the same time, the director of the department Eduard Pavlenko emphasized that the issue of demolishing or simply moving the bust is not in his competence.[127] In late February 2023, the authorities of Kamenskoye, Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, where General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev was born, stated that they would not demolish a monument erected in his honour. The authorities, referring to a lack of funds for dismantling and the difficult situation in the country, said that demolishing the bust of Leonid Brezhnev would be considered after the situation normalized.[128] Yet later – on 27 July 2023 – the monument was demolished.[129]

According to Viktor Cherniy, deputy chairman of an agricultural cooperative in the village of Letava, Khmelnitsky Oblast, when the Maidan protests began in Kiev, unknown individuals arrived in the village. They demanded the removal of a monument to Vladimir Lenin located in the village centre. Local residents brought a crane, carefully dismantled the monument and took it to the grain storage facility, and by 1 May, when everything had settled down, they returned it to its place.[130]

In July 2023, in the city of Glukhov, Sumy Oblast, they refused to dismantle a memorial plaque dedicated to a native of the city, Hero of Russia Alexey Stankevich, who died on the submarine “Kursk.”[131]

In April 2025, the Kelmentsi village council of the Dniester district of Chernovtsy Oblast informed the UINM that the residents of the village of Vartikovtsy refused to rename a street named after plant breeder scientist Ivan Michurin.[132]

In January 2026, the Klishkovtsy village council of the Dniester district of Chernovtsy Oblast, in response to a request from “decolonization” activists, refused to rename the streets named after Ivan Michurin, Oleg Koshevoy, Joseph Clisci, and Ivan Chernyakhovsky.[133]

One of the trends that emerged in 2022 was the announcement of a personal war against the great Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin by fighters against the “Russian past”, because Russian literature is allegedly a conductor of imperial ideas, and Aleksandr Pushkin himself, in his poem “Poltava,” negatively portrayed Hetman Ivan Mazepa, who betrayed Peter I and moved to the service of the Swedes. By the end of 2022, around 30 monuments to the Russian poet have been dismantled across Ukraine in the previous 11 months alone.[134]

Numerous cases of the destruction of monuments and memorial plaques honouring prominent Russian and Soviet figures, as well as representatives of culture and science, in large and small cities and rural settlements have been documented. Among those demolished are monuments to Russian military commander Aleksandr Suvorov, Prince Grigory Potemkin, Mikhail Lomonosov, Nikolay Ostrovsky, Nikolay Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Dmitry Mendeleev, Mikhail Bulgakov, pilot Valery Chkalov, Ivan Michurin, cosmonaut Yury Gagarin, and outstanding Soviet educator Anton Makarenko.

On 25 February 2025, another historical monument was destroyed. The authorities of Poltava demolished a monument to Russian Emperor Peter I, located near the Museum of the History of the Battle of Poltava. The statue of the emperor was crafted as early as in 1915 in St. Petersburg. Initially, from 1919, it stood in the main lobby of the Petrovsky Poltava Cadet Corps. After the corps was disbanded, the statue was sent to Poltava. Commenting in her social media post on the demolition, acting city head Ekaterina Yamshchikova, described the action as a deliberate societal effort and liberation from “Russian imperial markers.”[135], [136]

According to the Odessa City Council’s decision on 4 December 2024, the following monuments are subject to demolition: the historical monument to Aleksandr Pushkin on Primorsky Boulevard, which is a cultural heritage site and under UNESCO protection, and the monument to Aleksandr Pushkin on Italyanskaya (formerly Pushkinskaya) Street, erected for the poet’s 200th anniversary.[137] The first monument, besides being one of the city’s symbols, can also be justly regarded as a people’s monument, as it was erected in 1887‑1889 with funds raised by the residents of Odessa, which is documented by an inscription on the monument: “To Aleksandr Pushkin from the citizens of Odessa.”

Among the barbaric incidents that took place in 2025, the following should be noted:

On 27 January 2025, a monument to Russian and Soviet scientist Ivan Pavlov was dismantled in Kiev.[138]

In February 2025, in Odessa, a memorial dedicated to Russian cultural and scientific figures – poet Aleksandr Pushkin, artist Mikhail Vrubel, mathematician Aleksandr Lyapunov, and physiologist Ivan Sechenov – was desecrated.[139]

At the end of February 2025, in Poltava, a monument to Russian Emperor Peter I was dismantled. This decision was made by the Poltava City Council.[140]

Ukrainian ultranationalism seeks to destroy all traces of Russia’s cultural heritage, introducing bans on performances of classical works by Russian composers, which are part of the world’s cultural heritage. Another issue that concerns the UINM is Pyotr Tchaikovsky – or rather, the renaming of the National Music Academy of Ukraine associated with the composer. According to the conclusion of the “expert commission” of the UINM, the name of Pyotr Tchaikovsky “has become an instrument of Russian cultural expansion.”[141] On 30 December 2025, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine decided to remove the composer’s name from the name of the National Music Academy of Ukraine named after Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

Today, all forms of Russian culture, including music and literature, have been excluded from the repertoires of Ukrainian theatres and concert halls. Artists who dare to perform works by Russian composers are subjected to harassment. For example, in January 2026, it was revealed that ballet soloists of the National Opera of Ukraine, Natalya Matsak and Sergey Krivokon, during their vacation granted at their own expense, toured Europe with the United European Ballet performing Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.”

Previously, Natalya Matsak openly criticized the removal of works by Russian composers from the opera’s repertoire in media comments: “We need to understand: if we want to communicate with the world in the same language, we must respect the heritage that is part of the global one. And no matter how much we might want to, we cannot put labels on things without in-depth analysis. I see what colossal damage the abandonment of the classical repertoire has caused to ballet dancers.”[142]

The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, together with the National Opera, are studying the situation within the framework of current legislation and labour relations.[143] However, the profiles of Natalya Matsak and Sergey Krivokon have already disappeared from the National Opera’s website.

On 4 August 2025, in the village of Rudkovtsy, Khmelnitsky Oblast, the last remaining monument to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine was dismantled.[144]

In December 2025, the Kiev City Council decided to dismantle the monument to writer Mikhail Bulgakov. In this regard, nationalists held a rally at the monument to Mikhail Bulgakov demanding its demolition.[145] Remarkably, while about a dozen assembled radicals with posters chanted “Get out, Bulgakov, from Ukraine!”, residents of the capital brought flowers to the monument shrouded in plastic wrap.

In December 2025, Ukrainian Nazis dismantled a memorial plaque in Odessa dedicated to a native of the city, Soviet writer Evgueny Petrov (Katayev) – co-author of the novels “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf,” beloved throughout the former Soviet Union, about the adventures of Ostap Bender.[146]

Such a policy of destroying everything connected in any way with Russia and the shared historical past not only shows no signs of abating, but on the contrary, is gaining momentum.

On 30 August 2025, the law “On the Principles of State Policy on the National Memory of the Ukrainian People” entered into force, which granted the UINM the status of a central executive authority, as well as the powers not only to implement policy in the sphere of national memory, but also to shape it.[147]

On 12 December 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, in furtherance of this law, approved the Statute of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, and also adopted a decision to increase the budget of the UINM in 2026, compared to previous years, by approximately tenfold – to half a million US dollars – and to increase its staff by 22 positions.[148]

In this regard, UINM Director Aleksandr Alferov announced on 31 December 2025 the beginning of an offensive for “their heritage” – the “Reconquista.”[149] Allegedly, the UINM is doing what is dangerous for the “enemy” and brings “victory” closer.

The West’s whitewashing of Ukrainian neo-Nazism

In the light of the special military operation carried out by the Russian Federation, there is an increasing tendency in the Western media and NGOs to whitewash the Ukrainian neo-Nazis, who are presented as fighters for the freedom and independence of a “democratic” country, fighting the “aggression of a dictatorial regime.”

American IT companies are providing noticeable assistance to Kiev. Simultaneously with these restrictions, the administration and moderators of YouTube do not object to dissemination of information by extremist organizations, first of all by the “Right Sector” and by the “Azov” nationalistic formation, banned in Russia.[150], [151] In fact, YouTube has become one of the key platforms to spread fakes about the special military operation in Ukraine and discredit the Russian Armed Forces.

Censorship is actively applied by Meta (recognized as extremist and is banned in Russia), which owns the Facebook and Twitter/X social networks. At the same time, in the beginning of February – March 2022 the calls “to kill Russians,” instructions on the ways of killings and making explosives, as well as other similar content, were actively distributed on these platforms. The moderators ignored user complaints about such blatant dissemination of hateful ideology. At the same time, content from Russian media, public figures, as well as ordinary citizens, comprising the Russian position or simply objective viewpoints on the events in Ukraine, is deliberately blocked.

Many other international Internet resources help to hide the materials testifying to the Kiev regime’s crimes from public attention. In December 2022, it became known that the English-language online encyclopaedia site Wikipedia removed the English-language article about the Angel Alley memorial erected in Donetsk in memory of children killed by Ukrainian Armed Forces’ shelling. There are still materials about the Angel Alley in Russian, Ukrainian and six other languages. However, the media noticed false information therein.[152] In addition, the Ukrainian version of this article shifts the emphasis to the fact that these children died “during the invasion and occupation of Donetsk and Donetsk Oblast by Russia,” and does not say a word about shelling by the AFU. Similar “inaccuracies” exist in other language versions.

Efforts to whitewash Ukrainian neo-Nazis are also recorded. In February 2023, Meta management removed the Ukrainian nationalist formation “Azov” from its list of dangerous organizations, thus giving this extremist structure the ability to openly run social media, including to promote violence and its criminal methods of warfare.[153] “Azov” militants have never concealed and, even on the contrary, publicly emphasized their adherence to the ideas of neo-Nazism and hatred on national and ethnic grounds. Such actions of Meta are yet another confirmation of the fact that the “collective West” (and Meta, despite the global nature of its activities, strictly adheres to its policies, mainly in the face of the United States), contrary to the democratic values previously proclaimed by itself, uses misanthropic ideas in an attempt to ensure its dominance.

In addition, it should be noted that Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups are closely linked to radical right and extremist groups in Europe and America. These structures have close ties. Nationalists from abroad regularly came to Ukraine, where they received training in Ukrainian nationalist formations and at Ukrainian military combat positions in the Donbass. There is the well-known case of former American serviceman Craig Lang, who had been involved in hostilities in Ukraine on the side of nationalist battalions since 2015 and, after returning to the United States, shot a married couple dead.[154]

Persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which represents the country’s largest religious confession with the biggest number of believers, also came under the attacks of the Russophobic Kiev regime.[155] For many years, the authorities have been waging an aggressive struggle to completely squeeze it out of the country’s religious space.

A large-scale information campaign has been launched against the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church aimed at discrediting its priests in the eyes of the flock and creating an image of them as “collaborators of the enemy.” Slanderous rumours are spread about the UOC parish priests and hierarchy, and diverse fake news is posted on social networks saying the church hierarchy allegedly assists the Russian Armed Forces. On a daily basis, the Ukrainian police and the SBU accuse people of storing weapons, ammunition, and provisions for the “aggressor” in UOC churches.

On the basis of such “arguments,” Ukrainian politicians and officials call for the prohibition of the UOC and the deprivation of its property. There have been many cases of seizures of the churches belonging to the canonical UOC and their subsequent “transfer” to the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) created by the Kiev regime. Thus, the monograph prepared with the assistance of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom “Chronicle of the “Black Decade”. Religious Persecution in Ukraine, 2014-2023″ that contains references to mass media publications, notes that in the period from 2019 to 2021 about 500 parishes of the UOC were illegally re-registered in favour of the OCU and 144 churches were seized by schismatics.[156] In April 2021, the then-Head of the State Committee for Religions of Ukraine Yuri Reshetnikov said that the Ukrainian authorities were ignoring over one million appeals of the UOC believers.

On 20 August 2024, the Verkhovnaya Rada passed a law banning the canonical UOC (came into force on 23 September 2024). It was supported by 265 out of 450 parliamentarians. The UOC communities were given nine months to break all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). It gives Ukrainian courts the ability to liquidate all religious administrations, monasteries, communities, parishes and educational institutions that are separate legal entities, and transfer them to the ownership of other religious organisations, primarily the schismatic OCU. This novelty provided grounds and set into action a judicial mechanism of the complete prohibition of the UOC in Ukraine. This law contradicts Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine which provides for the guarantees of the right to freedom of thought and religion.

According to media reports, the law was personally lobbied for by Vladimir Zelensky, who said its adoption would “strengthen the spiritual independence” of Ukrainians and “deprive Moscow of the last opportunities to restrict their freedom.”[157] By doing this, the Kiev regime re-confirmed its dictatorial nature and readiness to disregard the faith of millions of citizens of the country for its political ambitions.

There is also information about attempted extortion taking place among the Verkhovnaya Rada’s deputies in order to force them to support this scandalous initiative. The first essay to adopt the aforementioned law failed in June 2024 (shortage of vote causa) and Pyotr Poroshenko got down to re‑gathering signatures in support of consideration thereof. As far as in July 2024, Verkhovnaya Rada’s deputy and active member of Poroshenko’s Party Irina Gerashchenko threatened to publish the names of all those who did not want to support the bill, stating that they were “defensive of the Russian aggression.”

The fact that the law adopted on 20 August 2024 pursues the goal of absorbing the canonical church by the OCU is indirectly evidenced by the appeal of the OCU “Metropolitan” Epiphanius (Dumenko) to the Head of the UOC Onuphrius (Berezovsky) to unite the churches, published several days earlier, on 15 August 2024.

Also illustrative is the support expressed for this law by the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations. In particular, its ban was endorsed by the «head» of the OCU, the head of the UGCC, a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), and the chief rabbi of Kiev and Ukraine. In doing so, this entity ignored its own Charter, according to which all its decisions were made only based on the consensus and consent of the leaders or authorized representatives of all religious organisations participating therein. Notably, representatives of the canonical church, which is part of the council, were not even invited to the meeting where the decision to support the ban on the UOC was made.[158]

As part of the implementation of the unconstitutional Law on the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Field of Activities of Religious Organizations, on 25 September 2024 the Ukrainian authorities decided to conduct an all-Ukrainian audit of the property of religious communities of the UOC – following an almost «classical» scheme of raider-like, essentially illegal, seizure of others’ property, but with its own particular specifics and with the blessing of the Ukrainian leadership.

From 20 May to 8 July 2025, the State Service for Ethnopolicy and Freedom of Conscience of Ukraine (EFCU) conducted a so-called religious studies examination to determine the presence of “signs of affiliation” of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC with the Russian Orthodox Church. The law defines seven markers of affiliation as follows, leaders’ membership in ROC-related entities, financial ties, common statutory documents, etc. If the EFCU identifies at least one marker, an instruction will be sent to the religious organisation. “If the religious organisation complies with the instruction, there will be no claims against it. If it does not, the EFCU has the right to go to court that will decide the future fate of the organisation,” Viktor Yelensky emphasized.[159]

On 27 August 2025, the EFCU recognized the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC as affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, and on 29 August 2025 filed a lawsuit in court to terminate its activities.[160] The court is also asked to transfer its property, funds, and other assets, except for religious worship items, to the state.

On 17 November 2025, the EFCU approved a list of religious organizations affiliated with a “foreign religious structure whose activities are prohibited in Ukraine.”[161] It included the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC and the Koretsky Holy Trinity Convent of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The inspection for ties to the Russian Orthodox Church also affected the Holy Intercession Goloseyev Hermitage monastery of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC, which was included in the relevant list back in the summer of 2025. The inspection activities intensified amid publications in the Ukrainian media claiming that the school at the monastery allegedly uses Russian-language materials and Soviet textbooks. At the same time, the institution’s leadership reported that it was not actually an “underground school,” but rather a family club, where classes are optional.[162] Based on the results of the inspection, which lasted from 26 January to 19 March 2026, on 24 March 2026 the SSUEPFC announced that it had established signs of affiliation of the monastery with a “religious organization banned in Ukraine,” i.e., the Russian Orthodox Church, through its subordination to the Kiev Metropolitanate.

Apart from the formal side of the issue, in a number of cities and regions (Lvov, Chernovtsy, Konotop, Sumy Oblast, as well as Ivano-Frankovsk, Kiev, Lvov, Zhitomir, Rovno and Khmelnitsky Oblasts, etc.), the local authorities have already banned the activities of the UOC without waiting for the country’s Parliament to adopt the law.

The Ukrainian authorities began to demonstrate their determination to destroy the UOC parallel to the beginning of the discussion of the corresponding legislative initiative in the Verkhovnaya Rada back in 2023. On 1 February 2023, the EFCU published the results of the religious expert examination of the UOC Charter. As expected, they pointed out the UOC’s canonical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). According to the conclusion of this body, the current activity or inactivity of the highest bodies of church power and administration of the UOC indicates that the UOC continues to be in a relationship of subordination to the ROC. The UOC called these findings “gross manipulation and an attempt to violate the right to freedom of religion,” and on 27 July 2023, representatives of the UOC filed a lawsuit to challenge the findings of the examination.[163]

On 15 May 2023, the Kiev District Administrative Court ruled that the UOC has not severed its ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and is part of it, which could be grounds for banning the UOC if such a decision is upheld by higher courts. On 26 June 2023, the SSUEPFC posted on its website a list of clarifications the UOC was to provide to prove its separateness from the ROC. However, experts note that any such explanations by the UOC will not lead to the fact that Ukrainian state structures will be ready to lift the restrictions imposed on the canonical church.[164]

Currently, the Kiev regime is making attempts to legislatively prohibit the activities of the UOC and to deny the canonical church access to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

On 2 September 2025, the EFCU filed a lawsuit with the High Administrative Court to terminate the activities of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC.[165]

The Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal in Kiev is considering a case filed by the State Service for Ethnopolicy and Freedom of Conscience of Ukraine regarding the termination of the activities of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC and the expropriation of its property.[166] The next court hearing scheduled for 11 December 2025 has been postponed indefinitely.

At the same time, the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal in Kiev is considering a lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine seeking the expulsion of UOC monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

Despite the ongoing proceedings, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine is taking active steps to deny the UOC access to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.[167] In early February 2026, the ministry decided to terminate the free use by the Orthodox Church of two buildings in the lower part of the Lavra (where the residence of the Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onuphrius, and the chancellery of the Kiev Metropolitanate were located), and on 17 February 2026, by decision of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the UOC monks also lost access to two churches – the Exaltation of the Cross Church and the Church of All Venerable Fathers of the Caves – where locks were cut off and replaced.[168] Similar actions were taken on 24 March 2026, regarding monastery buildings No. 41 and 42.

Another reason for the persecution of the UOC was the issue of the use of the church calendar – that is, the celebration of Orthodox holidays according to the New Julian or Gregorian calendar (new style). Back in 2020-2021, OCU’s “Head” Epiphanius spoke for celebrating Christmas together with Europe, on 25 December, rather than “with the Russian World,” on 7 January. At that time, according to sociologists, the majority of Ukrainians did not support such a transition. So, in 2019, the Ukrainian sociological group “Rating” published information that only one in four (25 per cent) Ukrainians support the idea of moving the celebration of Christmas from 7 January to 25 December, while 64 per cent of citizens spoke out against.

Since 2022, the topic of the transition to the new style has become more frequently brought up in the Ukrainian media space under the pretext of fighting the Russian World and distancing from the ROC, thus turning into another weapon of info-ideological war of the ruling regime in Ukraine. The OCU representatives called the old style, inter alia, an instrument for knuckling down the ROC, or the “Russki” living style, while the transition to the new style was called “a blow to the Russian World”.

The issue of the transition of churches to the new calendar style began to be actively promoted by the authorities of the country, thus interfering in church affairs. In December 2022, a survey on when Ukrainians want to celebrate Christmas was carried out through the official application for public services “Diya.”[169]

On 28 June 2023, Vladimir Zelensky introduced a bill to the Verkhovnaya Rada that would abolish the country’s celebration of Christmas on 7 January, calling the Julian calendar a “Russian ideology.” It finally came into force on 28 July 2023 after being signed by Vladimir Zelensky, which legalized the “calendar reform.” Chairman of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the UOC Metropolitan Kliment (Vecherya) said in connection with this innovation that the UOC will continue to celebrate Christmas on 7 January,[170] and the decision to change the calendar is due to political, not ecclesiastical reasons.[171]

The “calendar reform” also caused a split within the ranks of the schismatic OCU, which is supported by the authorities; a number of its communities expressed disagreement with the innovation and continued to celebrate Christmas according to the old style – on 7 January.[172]

A telling conflict on this basis was recorded in the Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast. Some parishioners of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Kosmach, which belongs to the OCU, came to the Christmas service at the church on 25 December 2025. However, the entrance to the church was blocked by other believers who wished to celebrate Christmas on 7 January. Those wishing to celebrate Christmas “in the new way” waited outside for the church to open for more than five hours, but the Christmas service never took place. In 2025, Christmas was also celebrated on 7 January in this church. The rector of the church then explained this by saying that the parishioners had decided to take advantage of the transition period, which lasted until 2025. At a parish assembly, they decided to celebrate on 7 January.[173] The part of the faithful dissatisfied with this went to Ivano-Frankovsk to the OCU Metropolitan Arseniy, and he conveyed to them that they should celebrate Christmas twice – on 25 December and 7 January.

Thus, the politicized and anti-people nature of the decision by the Kiev authorities is obvious.

Against this backdrop, the decision by the Kiev regime to establish Programmers’ Day on 7 January is striking in its cynicism. On 24 December 2025, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the relevant decree of Vladimir Zelensky.[174]

On 12 September 2024, the EFCU ordered to block access to websites publicizing the UOC activities (https://raskolam.net, https://www.dialogtut.org, https://spzh.livet). The order did not specify the reasons for the blocking.

Public statements by Ukrainian politicians confirm Kiev’s Russophobic course and its deliberate actions that put canonical Orthodoxy in a discriminatory position. Thus, Mikhail Podolyak, advisor to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said on 30 March 2023, that only the OCU should remain in Ukraine, and the UOC “will gradually leave for Russian cities.” Former secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Alexey Danilov, made harsh statements against the UOC, calling the existence of the UOC in the country a “special operation of the Russian Federation”, calling the actions of its priests irrelevant to the Lord God and welcoming the demolition of churches of this confession.[175] On 15 July 2024, former President Pyotr Poroshenko posted a congratulatory message on his Facebook account on the 1,036th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, calling the canonical church “an evil force that is against the faith” and promising to “enter into battle” with it. He also stated that “today, more than ever, the issue of adopting a law to ban the Russian pseudo-church FSB structure, which masquerades as the UOC MP, is critical.”

A notable role in the offensive against the UOC is assigned to organized groups of national radicals who raid churches and property of the canonical church. All this is accompanied by physical violence against its clergy and parishioners, desecration of holy places and other illegal actions that go unpunished. The UOC parishes become targets of numerous marauders who justify their plundering by struggle against “occupants” and their “spiritual lackeys.” Video footage of these actions is being circulated in Ukraine’s social networks with a call to follow these examples.[176]

Since November 2022, the SSU has tightened its anti-UOC action to the utmost. It started “counterintelligence activities” and searches in churches and monasteries belonging to it, while intimidating the believers.[177] Ukrainian security forces have repeatedly searched the territory of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. In the course of such “measures,” the special services interrogated clergymen and monks and searched for allegedly “subversive pro-Russian literature,” including Easter messages from the Moscow Patriarch, which are sent to all dioceses of the Moscow Patriarchate.

At the same time, the mass creation of new parishes in the OCU has led to a serious staff shortage in this structure, and there is just a small number of parishioners visiting its churches.[178]

The report of the EFCU for the first half of 2025 states that from the beginning of the special military operation to 1 June 2025, a total of 2,022 religious communities in Ukraine changed their jurisdiction, of which 1,285 had previously belonged to the UOC.

As of 1 January 2025, 10,118 parishes remained in the canonical UOC.

According to the report: in 2022, 483 UOC communities «transferred» to the OCU; 471 in 2023; 233 in 2024; 98 in 2025.

In total, since the creation of the OCU in 2018, more than 1,900 communities have «transferred» from the UOC to the OCU.[179]

Unprecedented pressure is being exerted by the authorities on the clergy of the canonical UOC, including through the use of repressive measures.

According to the Security Service of Ukraine, as of November 2025, since the start of the special military operation, more than 200 criminal cases have been opened against UOC priests, including 27 metropolitans and archbishops, allegedly for collaboration with the Russian FSB, intelligence gathering, recruitment of parishioners, and the like.[180] 78 clerics have been served notices of suspicion, 40 have been sentenced to actual prison terms, and 19 have been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship.

Among those stripped of citizenship are Metropolitan Jonathan (Yeletskikh) of Tulchin and Bratslav, Metropolitan Meletius (Yegorenko) of Chernovtsy and Bukovina, Metropolitan Irenaeus (Seredniy) of Dnepropetrovsk and Pavlograd, Vicar of the Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra Metropolitan Arseny (Yakovenko) of Svyatogorsk, Metropolitan Mark (Petrovtsev) of Khust and Vinogradov, Archbishop Panteleimon (Bashchuk) of Bucha and Archbishop Viktor (Bykov) of Artsiz, and others. In July 2025, by decree of Vladimir Zelensky, the primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onuphrius, was deprived of citizenship.

Metropolitan of Vyshgorod Pavel (Lebed), abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra; Metropolitan Joseph (Maslennikov); Metropolitan of Borispol and Brovary, Antony (Pakanich), manager of affairs of the UOC; and Metropolitan Meletius (Yegorenko) of Chernovtsy and Bukovina, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the UOC are among many priests of the UOC who fell under the repressions of the Kiev regime.

Much earlier, on 21 January 2023, the NSDC imposed sanctions against two dozen Russian clerics.

The SBU is also trying to prosecute the ROC bishops under Article 27, Part 5, and Article 110, Part 3, of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (accessory in wilful actions committed to change the territorial boundaries or national borders of Ukraine in violation of the order provided for in the Constitution of Ukraine upon a preliminary collusion by a group of persons, which entailed other grave consequences). The Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine went so far as to announce in absentia suspicion against Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, as well as four ROC representatives, i.e. Metropolitans Barsanuphius of St. Petersburg and Ladoga, Anthony of Volokolamsk, Pavel of Krutitsy and Kolomna, and Dionysius of Omsk and Taurida.[181],[182]

On 22 April 2025, the SBU announced in absentia suspicion of 14 ROC clergymen, i.e. Metropolitan Artemy of Khabarovsk and Priamurye, Bishop Methodius of Kamensk and Kamyshlov, Metropolitan Ambrose of Tver and Kashin, retired Metropolitan Leonid (Gorbachev), who previously served as the Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, Archbishop Feodor of Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka, Bishop Peter of Kalachinsk and Muromtsev, Metropolitan Lev of Novgorod and Staraya Russa, Metropolitan Arseny of Lipetsk and Zadonsk, Metropolitan Kirill of Kazan and Tatarstan, Bishop of Severobaikalsk and Sosnovo-Ozersk Nikolai, Archbishop Ipaty of Anadyr and Chukotka, Bishop Hilarion of Kineshma and Palekh, Bishop Tarasy of Severomorsk and Umba, Archbishop Arkady of Rovenkovsky and Sverdlovsk.[183]

Repression against priests and parishes of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has intensified amid preparations for the adoption of the notorious law on the complete ban of the canonical church. According to media reports, the SBU arrested and searched journalists working in media outlets of churches or affiliated with churches – the Union of Orthodox Journalists, Pervy Kazatsky, as well as human rights defenders and public activists, including representatives of the NGO Miryane and the Legal Defence Centre of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

On 12 March 2024, SBU searched the editorial office of the Union of Orthodox Journalists, charged fourteen of its employees under various articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“high treason,” “collaboration,” “creation and participation in a criminal organization,” “incitement of religious enmity and hatred by an organized group”) and detained four of them: Vladimir Bobechko, Valery Stupnitsky, Andrey Ovcharenko, and Archpriest Sergey Chertilin. In August 2024, Chertilin was released from the Kiev pre-trial detention centre on bail, and in September and November, Bobechko as well as Ovcharenko and Stupnitsky were released, correspondingly. The trial against them continues.

At the same time, the SBU press service cynically reported that a special operation had been carried out to “eradicate the largest agent network in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.” Those arrested were accused of working for the “aggressor,” maintaining relations with the Russian security services, high treason and participation in a criminal group. However, according to the lawyers of the detained Orthodox activists, the real reason is that they were reporting the truth about the crimes of the Kiev regime and nationalists under its control against the followers of the canonical UOC. In particular, it was reported that representatives of the splinter church of Ukraine staged the seizure of the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin of the canonical church in the Volyn Oblast. Orthodox journalists also reported on arrests and persecution of clergy. Among such facts is the detention by the SBU of the archpriest of the Khust diocese of the canonical church in the Transcarpathian Oblast, Father Johannes, and his lawyer Nikolay Krail. After these and many other miserable stories depicting harassment of canonical Orthodox Christians were published, the Ukrainian security services arrested the journalists.[184],[185] The documentary “Empty Churches of Ukraine: what is happening to the seized churches of the UOC,” which shows empty churches that the OCU had previously taken away from faithful of the UOC, was another reason for the persecution of Orthodox journalists by the Kiev authorities. This film only confirms the opinion expressed by experts about the lack of both personnel and parishioners in the OCU.[186]

In June 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine sent letters to the diocesan bishops of the UOC, in which it demanded that the hierarchs of the canonical church provide data about all churches and property under the jurisdiction of diocesan administrations, and the personal data of all persons responsible for their storage. They were also ordered to provide information on religious organisations run by the diocese.[187]

Attempts to seize church property and monastery buildings were another area where the Ukrainian authorities took repressive measures against the canonical church. Zelensky’s regime continues to take steps to establish control over the country’s main shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site – the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. At the beginning of 2023, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine terminated the lease agreement with the UOC for part of the Lavra buildings. After that, the clergy of the canonical church were not allowed to enter these premises for the Christmas service. Instead of them, representatives of the OCU were demonstratively brought there.

Since March 2023, the monks have been under regular pressure from Ukrainian security forces. In early July 2023, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine demanded that the monks vacate five buildings of the Lower Lavra, the territory of which is under the jurisdiction of the canonical UOC. In case of refusal, representatives of the Ministry threatened to replace the locks and seal the buildings.

On 20 May 2023, acting Minister of Culture of Ukraine Rostislav Karandeyev threatened to use force to evict the monks of the UOC from the territory of the Lower Lavra, since, according to him, they stayed there illegally. The monks of the canonical Church were given one month to move out voluntarily.[188]

On August 10, 2023, the Kiev Commercial Court granted the lawsuit of the National Cultural Reserve “on removing obstacles hindering the use of property,” thereby legalising the eviction of the monks from their permanent place of residence.[189]

On 11 August 2023, the Lavra was surrounded by Ukrainian security forces, blocking the entrance for believers and pilgrims, and a commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine sealed several buildings. Two days before that, on 9 August, Lavra’s counterclaim filed by its representatives to recognise unlawful the unilateral termination of the agreement on the use of the monastery was rejected.[190]

On 12 September 2023, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine announced that it had passed 13 objects out of about 40 buildings on the territory of the monastery under the control of the authorities.[191]

On 15 August 2024 it became known that the directorate of the Kiev-Pechersk Historical and Cultural Reserve sealed the Church of the Life-bearing Spring in Lavra, closing the parishioners’ access to the shrine. The church itself was closed.[192] Director General of the reserve Maksim Ostapenko explained the sealing of the church by the fact that the church is allegedly “state property.” He also reported that the reserve “had unilaterally terminated” the agreement with the UOC monastery.[193]

On 6 December 2024, the “Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, Vladimir Zelensky arranged a “military prayer breakfast” in the Refectory Church of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra with his own speech and its broadcast on large screens inside the church, which covered part of the icons. This buffet was attended by the “head” of the OCU Yepifany, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) Vitaly Krivitsky, representatives of Protestant denominations, Muslims and representatives of other religious organizations.[194]

On 15 December 2024 in this temple were held a cooking show of chef and restaurateur Yevgeny Klopotenko,[195] as well as a “folklore-academic” concert “Christmas – New Style” with the participation of Ukrainian folklore-ethnographic song and dance ensemble “Kalina” and ensemble “Blagovest”,[196]

The Kiev regime is also capturing another major monastery of the UOC – the Holy Dormition Pochayev Lavra.

In May 2023, the Ternopol Oblast’s Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case on the mismanagement of the lands of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, and the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine sent a departmental commission there. The pretext was that the monks allegedly used a plot of land of more than one thousand square meters without permission, and removed the top layer of the agricultural land. The Ukrainian authorities did not hide their invasive intentions. In March 2023, head of the Ternopol Regional Council Mikhail Golovko said he intended to demand the termination of the agreement with the UOC on the use of the land by the monastery. However, the 50-year lease agreement was concluded in 2003. The reason for the termination could be a far-fetched accusation of violation of its contractual obligations by the canonical church. The actions of the representatives of the Ukrainian authorities confirm this attitude. In addition to the state, the schismatic OCU and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) also claimed to the Pochaev Lavra.[197]

On 19 August 2023, the authorities of the Ternopol Oblast allegedly “for security reasons” banned the procession to Pochaev Lavra in honour of the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. The procession was blocked in three Oblasts: Ternopol, Khmelnitsky and Rovno. At the place of gathering of believers in the cathedral of Kamenets-Podolsky in the Khmelnitsky Oblast, parishioners and clergy were faced with police. The law enforcers also tried to serve summonses to men of conscription age.[198]

On 17 April 2024, the Ternopol City Council decided to deprive the UOC of land in the city, as a result of which the Ternopol diocese of the UOC lost control over the site where the Cathedral of the canonical church is located. In the same month, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine set up a commission to check the use of facilities in Pochaev Lavra.[199] In November 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted searches in the monastery. And on 5 June 2024, it came to light that a commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine with the support of the SBU began its work in Pochaev Lavra.[200] According to experts, these actions indicated the beginning of the seizure of the monastery and its property.

On 14 August 2024, the Economic Court of Ternopol Oblast decided to expropriate the complex of premises of Pochaev St. Dukhov Monastery, a skit of the UOC. On 31 October 2024, the Lvov Western Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld the ruling.[201]

The Kiev regime is reported to be taking efforts to seize other UOC monasteries while putting a varnish of legality on these actions. On 5 July 2024, the Kiev Economic Court of Appeal, following a lawsuit filed by the National Architectural and Historical Reserve “Ancient Chernigov”, ruled that the administration of the Chernigov diocese of the canonical UOC has no right to be on the territory of the Yeletsky monastery, and ordered the clergy to leave the monastery. In autumn 2023, the commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine announced the start of work on the transfer to state ownership of the objects of the reserve “Ancient Chernigov”, the list of which included the temples that were in the use of the canonical church.[202] In March 2024, the acting director general of the reserve, Vladimir Khomich, demanded that the UOC vacate the Trinity and Yeletsky monasteries, as well as the Transfiguration Cathedral in Chernigov.[203]

Since the beginning of 2025, according to media reports, in Bukovina alone, illegal meetings have been held to transfer 16 parishes of the UOC under the control of the “self-ordained clergy”. In the Chernovtsy Oblast, a change of jurisdiction was hastily formalised and “13 charters” of OCU religious communities were registered.[204]

On 6 March 2025, OCU adherents cynically exploited the emergency hospitalisation of 62-year-old Archpriest Vasily Kovalchuk of the UOC in the Storozhynets District of the Chernovtsy Oblast (who was admitted to intensive care in a pre-heart attack condition following operational measures and a search by the SBU carried out the previous day) and, with the assistance of the police, physically seized the Holy Dormition Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the village of Komarovtsy, which had previously been re-registered in favour of the schismatics.[205]

On 29 March 2025, supporters of the OCU forcibly seized two churches of the UOC in Belaya Tserkov, Kiev Oblast.[206]

On 30 May 2025, supporters of the OCU, backed by the police, stormed the grounds of the Holy St. Elijah Church of the UOC in the village of Zabolotye in Bukovina.[207]

On 17 June 2025, a group of radical OCU supporters attempted a violent takeover of the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the UOC in Chernovtsy.[208] The parishioners managed to defend their church, despite the use of tear gas by the invaders.[209]

On 6 August 2025, a group of raiders from the OCU cut the locks and seized the Vvedensky Church of the canonical church in the village of Dovbysh, Zhitomir. Oblast, having first cut the electrical cables to prevent their crime from being recorded on video. The raiders were joined by employees of the local TRC, who beat up parishioners who tried to defend the church.[210]

On 23 December 2025, a group of OCU raiders seized the Pokrovsky Church of the Alexandria diocese of the UOC in the village of Chechelievka, Kirovograd Oblast. Police officers present at the scene did not prevent the seizure of the church; on the contrary, when the raiders cut the locks on the doors, the police formed a corridor for them so that they could leave the scene unhindered.[211]

Also, on 23 December 2025, supporters of the OCU in the town of Chigirin, Cherkasy Oblast, seized the Church of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God from the UOC. Earlier, on 21 February 2025, through a fraudulent scheme and without the consent of the UOC’s religious community, the parish was re-registered under the jurisdiction of the OCU.[212]

On 9 February 2026, in the village of Kuzmin, Khmelnitsky Oblast, the Holy Nativity Church of the UOC was forcibly seized.[213] Previously, the Khmelnitsky Oblast State Administration had carried out an illegal re-registration of the religious community, changing its name, leader and denominational affiliation.

As part of the Kiev regime’s actions to seize monasteries belonging to the UOC, efforts have been made to seize Orthodox shrines, including relics of saints and items of church decoration, which the current authorities of the country, who are voluntarily selling off their history, regard as artifacts whose value is determined not by history and tradition but by their auction value. In June 2023, the media reported that the Ukrainian authorities had agreed with UNESCO to move ancient icons and relics of saints from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to European museums “for preservation”. It is known that the most ancient Byzantine icons were smuggled out of the country, allegedly with the mediation of the above-mentioned United Nations agency and the Swiss NGO International Alliance for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Conflict Zones, and exhibited in the Louvre Museum in Paris. After that, according to reports, agreements were reached on the removal of the relics of Orthodox saints from the Lavra. At the same time, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine called them just “exhibits”. It was assumed that those antique objects of Orthodox art, stolen with the Kiev regime’s consent, could be used as a means of payment for Western weapons.[214] In this situation, a lot of questions are addressed not to Kiev – we all know what it is, it is bound to face the history trial. However, what will Paris do when everything is over and it will have to give an account for its wrongful actions, including indulging in persecution of believers and clergymen?

Trying to counterbalance the criticism of the international community, Director of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, Maxim Ostapenko told reporters in November 2023: “The Ministry of Culture together with specialists from various sectors will conduct an expert examination, check these relics for authenticity. We want to avoid any accusations that we keep the wrong ones or that they have been stolen”. On 31 March 2024, a representative of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, Marianna Tomin supported this policy by announcing the ministry’s plans to conduct an inventory of the relics of the Kiev-Pechersk Monks located in the Lavra’s caves, which she called “unburied remains of saints”. Anthropologists, military chaplains, and archaeologists were involved in the work of the Commission. However, the UOC clergy were barred from participating in these examinations, since according to the Ukrainian law on military chaplains adopted in December 2021, the UOC priests could not be military chaplains; that service was reserved for priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church or from the schismatic OCU. Accordingly, they were the only ones authorised to conduct that “examination of the unburied remains” of Orthodox saints. Representatives of both confessions have repeatedly stated that the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is also the resting place of “wrong” remains, referring to the relics of “Russian saints”. Since the OCU has excluded several “wrong” saints from its canon, experts believe it is quite likely that the relics of saints who do not meet the Ukrainian criteria of patriotism will be removed from the Lavra.[215]

On 5 March 2025, by order of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine was established a commission “to verify the historical and scientific value of the remains of the saints”, located in the caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Its composition, as announced earlier, included the holder of numerous awards of now deceased false patriarch Philaret[216] and the OCU – Doctor of Veterinary Sciences, head of the Department of Vertebrate Biomorphology of the National University of Bioresources and Nature Management of Ukraine, Oleg Melnik, head of the Department of Human Anatomy of Odessa Medical University Yelena Appelhans, professor of the Department of Anatomy of Vinnitsa University Yuri Guminsky, head of the Department of Military Surgery of the Ukrainian Military Medical Academy Sergei Korol, professor of the Department of Public Health and Nutritiology Gennady Tkach and others. These people are hardly directly related to culture and religion. In fact, under the leadership of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the process of systematic looting and destruction of values of particular importance for the entire Orthodox and Christian world has actually begun.

On 28 March 2025, during Lent, members of the commission, accompanied by the police, broke into the Near and Far Caves of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, replaced the locks, and sealed part of the premises. They intend to open the reliquaries of the saints in the Near Caves of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and take samples for DNA-expertise. The commission worked in the Lavra until the end of May.[217] The results of its work were classified in advance.

According to Verkhovnaya Rada deputy Aleksander Dubinsky, who is currently imprisoned for his allegedly “pro-Russian views”, the main goal of the commission set up by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture is to seize the relics of Ilya Muromets and send them to Great Britain for examination. The result of the “research” should be the conclusion that Ilya Muromets is not a Slav, but a Finn, therefore, the basis of the Russian ethnos – Finno-Ugric tribes, not the Slavs, which “proves” the lack of connection between Kievan Rus’ and Moscow.[218]

Precedents of carrying out an inventory of remains have already taken place. On 5 October 2023, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine confiscated the relics of three saints – St. Theodosius, St. Philaret, and St. Lawrence of Chernigov – from the UOC’s Chernigov Holy Trinity Cathedral. For now, there is no information whether the relics are in the Holy Trinity Cathedral, nor is it known whether it was damaged by the Ukrainian ministry during the unexpected seizure of the cathedral and afterwards. The National Architectural and Historical Reserve “Ancient Chernigov” does not have any documents on the “inventory” of the relics of St. Philaret and St. Lawrence.[219]

The fact that the Kiev regime is considering the possibility of using the relics of Orthodox saints as a “bargaining chip” is also indicated by an article published in the Romanian patriarchate’s publication “Basilica” in October 2023, entitled “Ukraine is ready to offer Romanians the relics of St. Theodora in exchange for the remains of national heroes.”[220] It mentions unofficial agreements between the governments of Romania and Ukraine to search for the relics of Saint Theodora of Sihla, which, as Romanian researchers suggest, may be in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in order to exchange them for the remains of hetmans Philip Orlik and Ivan Mazepa, buried on the territory of Romania.

The Kiev regime has unleashed criminal persecution of UOC priests, while cynically claiming that there is allegedly no religious persecution in the country, and all that the state requires from the canonical UOC is to cut ties with Russia. In particular, since 2022 the following priests have been criminally prosecuted on charges of “inciting religious hatred”: Metropolitan Theodosius (Snegirev) of Cherkassy, as well as Ioasaph (Guben), the former Metropolitan of Kirovograd and Novomirgorod, at present Metropolitan of Vasilkov, Metropolitan Jonathan (Yeletskikh) of Tulchin and Bratslav, vicar of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed) of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, abbot of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Borodyanka, Kiev Oblast Archpriest Viktor Talko, abbot of the Ascension Monastery in Banchen (UOC) Metropolitan Longin (awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine in 2008), Metropolitan Vasily (Povoroznyuk) of Lugansk and Alchevsk, Archdeacon of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Pavel (Muzychuk), Chairman of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations of the UOC, Archpriest Nikolay Danilevich, vicar of the Holy Dormition Svyatogorsk Lavra Metropolitan Arseny (Yakovenko), Metropolitan Luke (Kovalenko) of Zaporozhye and Melitopol, former Metropolitan Elisey of Izyum and Kupyansk (currently in Russia) and many others.

There have been documented incidences where, as a result of the torture inflicted on clergymen during court proceedings and the deliberate imposition of unbearable conditions, the priests fell ill and had to be hospitalised. Such actions took place during the trials in the case of Metropolitan Pavel, Metropolitan Theodosius and Metropolitan Arseny.

The fact that the abbot of the Svyatogorsk Lavra, Metropolitan Arseny, was subjected to torture of an “indescribable level of cruelty” was reported by Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer representing the interests of the UOC, in an interview with the well-known journalist Tucker Carlson.[221]

On 6 February 2026, the Pridnestrovsky District Court of Cherkasy handed down a guilty verdict against Metropolitan Theodosius under Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the equality of citizens on the basis of their racial, national or regional origin, religious beliefs, disability or other characteristics). This is the first of four trials against the clergyman to have ended in a guilty verdict.[222]

Detailed information on court cases against clergymen of UOC is given in the second joint report of the Foreign Ministries of Russia and Belarus titled “On the human rights situation in individual countries”.

On 18 January 2025, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said that the ex-deputy of the Verkhovnaya Rada, protodeacon of the UOC Vadim Novinsky was suspected of high treason and “violation of equal rights of citizens on the basis of their race, national and regional affiliation, and religious beliefs”. He is accused of spreading since 2014 “Kremlin narratives”, “the ideology of the Russian World” and the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, and “incitement to hatred and hostility on religious grounds.”[223]

The Kiev authorities, while continuing to persecute UOC clergy, have begun to pass sentences in the criminal cases they have stamped on Orthodox priests. The first conviction of a UOC clergyman was handed down in May 2023. The Leninsky District Court of Kirovograd sentenced Metropolitan Ioasaph (Guben) and the secretary of the diocese Roman Kondratyuk to three years. The priests were found guilty of “inciting religious discord.”[224]

On 7 August 2023, the head of the Tulchin diocese of the UOC, 75‑year‑old Metropolitan Ionafan (Eletskikh), was sentenced to five years in prison “for publicly justifying armed aggression against Ukraine”. On 11 August, the Vinnitsia prosecutor’s office expressed its displeasure with the fact that instead of six years the hierarch was sentenced to five years in prison.[225] On 22 June 2024, as a result of negotiations, the clergyman was released at the request of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, after which he arrived in Russia.

On 13 February 2024, a court in the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast sentenced the abbot of a church of the local diocese of the UOC to five years in prison in a case of justification of Russian aggression.[226]

On 18 December 2024, the Kalinovsky District Court sentenced a priest of the Vinnitsia diocese of the UOC, Archpriest Yevgeny Koshelnik, to 5 years’ imprisonment in a politicised criminal case for “supporting the SMO” in Internet publications.[227]

Another form of pressure on the canonical church was the forced mobilisation of priests by the Kiev regime.

In June 2025, the Ukrainian State Service for Ethnopolicy and Freedom of Conscience approved a list of 7,736 religious organisations whose clergy are exempt from mobilisation. It is important to note that thousands of parishes of the UOC were not included in the list, whereas it does include Sandey Andelaja’s “Embassy of God” and Vladimir Muntean’s “Church of Revival.”[228]

Deacon Andrey Glushchenko of the UOC stated that the overwhelming majority of the UOC’s legal entities – parishes, monasteries and dioceses – did not receive the right to exemption. According to him, thousands of UOC parishes, unlike all other religious associations (the OCU, the UGCC, the Roman Catholic Church, Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims, Jews, Hare Krishnas, and even neo-pagans), are now directly deprived by the state of the right to exempt their leaders (priests) from mobilisation. The clergyman notes that the main aim of this blatantly discriminatory list is to force as many UOC priests as possible to transfer to the OCU (along with their congregations), using the threat of sending them to the front in the event of refusal.

As a result, there were instances of forced mobilisation of UOC priests throughout the year. In 2025–2026, there were quite a few of such cases.

On 25 January 2025, Archimandrite Bogdan, the vicar of the UOC monastery in honour of the Mother of God Skoroposlushnitsa, located in the village of Babai, Kharkov diocese, was detained. After that, TRC officers tried to enrol him in several military units, but they did not accept him because the priest refuses to take up arms due to his religious beliefs.[229]

On 8 August 2025, two priests of the UOC were mobilised in Kharkov: Archpriest Sergei Kit, who served at the Church of the Holy Martyr Aleksandr of Kharkov, and his brother, Archpriest Vitaly, abbat of the Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel.[230]

It is important to note that the clergymen themselves believe this to be a political decision directed against the UOC as a whole. They held valid documents granting deferment from mobilisation. Furthermore, Sergei Kit had recently undergone surgery, which also qualifies him for a six-month deferment. However, this did not serve as a valid argument for the Territorial Centre for Recruitment and Social Support (TRCS).

On 26 August 2025, in the Ternopol Oblast, during a religious procession to the Pochayev Lavra, TRC staff mobilised Archpriest Bogdan Matveyev – a cleric of the Kremenchuk Diocese and father of five children.[231]

The TRC stated in this regard that, in accordance with Article 23 of the Law of Ukraine “On Military Duty and Military Service”, B. Matveyev had not exercised his right to deferment, had not been registered in accordance with the procedure established by law, and was therefore subject to mobilisation on general grounds.

In November 2025, Father Orest. Cherny was mobilised and sent to undergo basic general military training with the 82nd Bukovina Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, where he died on 29 November 2025. No details have been provided regarding the causes or circumstances of his death.[232]

In December 2025, in Uzhgorod, Transcarpathia, officers of the TRC unlawfully detained Archpriest Vasily Dragun, abbot of the Church of the Myrrh-Bearing Women of the UOC in the village of Rakovo. Parishioners on social media claim that Father Vasily was forcibly mobilised whilst he was receiving inpatient treatment at the regional hospital.[233]

On 2 December 2025, unknown individuals in military uniform detained Archpriest Sergei. Savievsky, who serves as parish priest in the villages of Silnoe and Gupaly. According to the Vladimir-Volyn Diocese, the priest was detained immediately after conducting a service right outside the church; he was taken before a military medical commission and sent to the Rovno training ground.[234]

In January 2026, Archpriest Vitaly Chaban, abbot of the Church of the Intercession in the village of Torgovishche, was mobilised in Volyn; he has official status as being of limited fitness for military service due to his health. He was mobilised whilst undergoing inpatient treatment. Having received a summons to verify his personal details, the priest arrived at the Turysk TRC. From there, he was immediately taken to Lutsk to undergo a military medical examination. The commission confirmed the previously established diagnosis and his status of limited fitness for service. Despite this, after the medical examination was completed, Archpriest Vitaly was taken away to an unknown destination. It later emerged that the priest was being transported to a military training ground in Starichi, Lvov Oblast.[235]

On 27 January 2026, officers from the TRC took Archpriest Oleg. Ostafyuk, who is the abbot of the parish in the village of Nizhnye Sinevtsy and also of the parish in the village of Verkhnye Sinevtsy in the Chernovtsy-Bukovina Diocese.[236]

On 28 January 2026, in Kiev, TRC officers detained Aleksandr. Itsenko, a cleric of the Kirill Monastery. The cleric was not on the wanted list and was carrying his priestly documents.[237]

On 28 January 2026, in Khmelnitsky TRC officers forcibly mobilised Archpriest Maxim Moskalchuk, abbot of the Holy Intercession Church in the village of Redvintsy, Khmelnitsky District. They took his phone and, against his will, took him to the Khmelnitsky City TRC. The Archpriest agreed to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine but refused to take arms, as his priestly office forbids him from doing so; he was then loaded onto a bus and taken away to an unknown destination.[238]

On 3 February 2026, in the village of Gorodilets in the Volyn oblast, unidentified individuals detained Archpriest Ioann Chirik, abbot of the “Life-Giving Spring” Church, without presenting any documents. The following day, a photograph of the priest in military uniform appeared on social media, indicating that he had been forcibly mobilised.[239]

The actions of schismatics to seize churches by force and destroy them continue and have even been intensified. Also, the activists of the OCU use a fraudulent scheme, when meetings are held at which completely unauthorised people vote and make decisions on behalf of the religious community. And then the local authorities, on the basis of these “decisions”, transfer the churches of the UOC to the structure of the OCU. Numerous examples of such seizure are given in the second joint report of the Belorussian and Russian Foreign Ministries “On the situation with human rights in individual countries”. Of the recent similar cases in 2025-2026, the following can be mentioned.

On 19 January 2025, supporters of the OCU, ignoring the opinion of the local Orthodox community, with the help of a pseudo meeting of activists fabricated the transfer in their favour of the Assumption Church of the UOC in the village of Komarovtsy in Vinnitsa Oblast.[240]

On 16 February 2025 in Chernovtsy, a crowd of unknown people led by several clerics of the OCU held a meeting under the fence of the Holy Spirit Cathedral of the UOC to “transfer” three churches of the canonical church at once: the Holy Spirit Cathedral, Saint Nicholas Cathedral and Petro-Pavlovsky Church (these are the main churches of the Chernovtsy-Bukovina Eparchy of the UOC). During the event, several hundred believers of the real UOC community of the Saint Dukhovsky Cathedral were praying inside the church. Accordingly, none of them took any part in the action.[241]

On 12 April 2025, on Lazarev Saturday, there was a forceful seizure of the Nikolayev church in the Verkhnye Stanovtsy village of Bukovina, which as early as on 3 February 2025, according to the fraudulent scheme elaborated by OCU activists at a fake community meeting, was transferred to the OCU. The local authorities immediately re-registered the church. The first attempt to seize the temple on the night of 8-9 April 2025 was repulsed by parishioners. This time the schismatics were well-prepared and developed a forceful operation, for which, under the pretext of “helping neighbours”, an OCU cleric Nikolay Khimyak called storm troopers.[242]

On 21 April 2025, in village of Stavchany, Bukovina, activists of the OCU forcibly seized the Archangel Michael Church of the UOC, which had previously been re-registered in the OCU, against the opinion of the parishioner. About two dozen men entered the church during the service and pushed the parishioners, mostly elderly women, into the street. Two days later, the abbot of the temple, Archpriest Vyacheslav Gogol, was stopped by the police and obliged to report to the TRC.[243]

On 4 May 2025 in the village of Banilov-Podgorny, Chernovtsy Oblast, supporters of the OCU, backed by local authorities, organised a meeting without community participation, at which they transferred two UOC churches in honour of the Ascension of the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the OCU at once.[244]

On 6 May 2025, there was a fraudulent handover to the OCU of St. Andrew’s Church in Cherkassy by attributing to the church a non-existent congregation, which allegedly made the decision to move to the structure of the OCU. Parishioners arrived to defend the church, but the police blocked the gates and did not let them inside. The mayor of Cherkassy also came to the church and accused those gathered that they were creating “a picture for Russian TV channels.”[245]

On 11 November 2025, supporters of the OCU stormed the UOC’s Church of the Icon of the “Saviour of Chernobyl” in Cherkasy and seized it.[246]

In November 2025, in Pereyaslav (Kiev Oblast), local authorities announced plans to forcibly evict the UOC parish from the historic St Michael’s Monastery. At a session of the Pereyaslav City Council on 20 November, a decision was adopted aimed at “removing obstacles to the use of the St Michael’s Church complex by the Pereyaslav National Historical and Ethnographic Reserve by vacating it of the religious community of the St Michael’s parish.”[247]

In 2023, a new tactic of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies against believers of the canonical church was recorded. On 1 August in the town of Gorodenka, Ivano-Frankovsk Oblast, for the first time police dispersed UOC believers who had gathered for prayer in a private house, since previously all UOC churches in the Oblast had been transferred to the OCU or closed by the authorities. The legal department of the UOC appealed to the specialized state structures of Ukraine with a demand to stop unlawful actions on the part of officials.[248]

Representatives of the Ukrainian authorities are now openly admitting to encourage the forceful seizure of churches of the UOC. On 7 February 2025, Yelena Bodnar, Head of the Department of Culture of the Region Military Adminisration of the Chernovtsy Oblast, reported that the regional administration, which registers the transfer of UOC religious communities in favour of the OCU, is not responsible for the reliability of information in the documents submitted for its consideration. According to her, the regional administration does not check the reliability of information in the documents submitted for re-registration. The responsibility for this, in her opinion, lies with the chairperson of the assembly where the decision on the transition is made. The legality of the chairperson’s authority, as well as the legality of the meetings, is not checked either. It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian state authority takes into account only documents on the transition to the OCU, whereas documents from the UOC community denying such a transition are not taken into account.[249] Such connivance on the part of government officials essentially encourages “raiders” to use fraudulent schemes to seize churches.

Kiev’s persecution of the canonical church has come to the attention of international human rights monitoring mechanisms. In November 2021, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern over this. In particular, it referred to incidents of aggression, intimidation and vandalism in churches related to the process of re-registration of churches and religious communities from the jurisdiction of the UOC to that of the OCU. The Human Rights Committee also highlighted the inaction of the Ukrainian police in such incidents and the lack of information on the investigation of offences.[250]

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has drawn attention to the restrictions on the activities of the UOC, the increase in hate speech against its clergy and violence against them in its reports on the human rights situation in Ukraine. Thus, the OHCHR report for 1 June – 31 August 2024 “Treatment of Prisoners of War and Review on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine” noted that references to national security considerations as a justification for restrictions on religious freedoms do not comply with the provisions of basic international human rights documents.[251] The report on the human rights situation in Ukraine from 1 September to 30 November 2024 also condemns the Law of Ukraine on protection of the constitutional order in the sphere of activities of religious organisations”, which entered into force on 23 September 2024 and created a legal framework for a complete ban on the UOC. In this regard, the conclusion was that the authorities failed to justify the necessity and proportionality of severe prohibitive measures restricting freedom of religion.[252]

In early 2024, the human rights organization Public Advocacy recognized at the international revel the violation of the rights of the UOC and that the Ukrainian authorities pursue a systematic policy of discrimination against this religious denomination and restrict the rights of its hierarchs and believers.[253] This statement was made after the publication of the joint request of the Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council on freedom of religion or belief, on the rights of minorities and on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association regarding violations of the rights of believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church recorded in Ukraine[254] and the response of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva to this request on 29 January 2024. In their request, the special procedures of the HRC expressed concern about the persecution of the UOC and its believers, which, according to the Special Rapporteurs, is related to the lawful and peaceful exercise of the rights of the UOC believers to freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and freedom of association, enshrined in Articles 18, 19 and 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Among other things, the request pointed to the fact that one of the hierarchs of the UOC had been served with suspicion of incitement to religious hatred and that his home had been searched, as well as to the fact that another hierarch of the Church had been sentenced to a real prison term. The Special Rapporteurs also drew attention to the decisions of Ukrainian courts encouraging the authorities to confiscate the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra used by the UOC, and to the numerous searches conducted by Ukrainian security forces in monasteries, offices, educational institutions and other premises of the UOC in November 2022. They also noted with concern the increasing number of manifestations of hatred and incitement to violence against believers and clergy of the UOC in some areas of Ukraine, especially in the western regions.

Public Advocacy human rights organization said that despite the fact that violations committed against the believers of the UOC in 2022-2023, as well as in earlier periods are obvious, the response of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN Office and other international organizations to the Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council was incomplete and in a number of points contained unreliable information.[255]

The World Council of Churches also stated that the anticlerical draft law violates international norms of freedom of religion and may divide Ukrainian society.[256] The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, while presenting the report on Ukraine to the UN Human Rights Council on 19 December 2023, pointed out that such actions of the Ukrainian authorities threaten freedom of religion and do not comply with the norms of international law.[257]

In addition, lawyer Robert Amsterdam from Amsterdam & Partners appealed to the former US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and current European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to persuade Zelensky not to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In his letter to the mentioned politicians, the lawyer assessed the proposed ban of the UOC as “an overly punitive attack that will cause serious harm to Orthodox Ukrainians”.[258]

The lawyer himself claimed about a campaign of disinformation and intimidation against him. In particular, a number of Ukrainian mass media spread information that he allegedly works on behalf of Patriarch Kirill and the Russian Orthodox Church. In a published statement, Amsterdam said that such an allegation has all the hallmarks of “aggressive disinformation with the purpose of intimidation and threats during consultations with his client in Kiev”. He also stressed that during his consultations with representatives of the UOC in the Ukrainian capital he had documented “numerous cases of harassment and false statements”, among them searches of one of the UOC clergymen, which took place the morning after his meeting with his lawyer.[259]

At the same time, Romanian MEP Maria Grapini sent a written request to the European Commission about the violation of the religious rights of the Romanian minority in Ukraine.[260]

Criticism from many church hierarchs of the Christian world, as well as human rights organisations, was caused by the odious law adopted on 20 August 2024 on the protection of the constitutional order in the sphere of activities of religious organisations. In particular, the Primates of the Russian, Serbian, Jerusalem, Bulgarian, Albanian, Macedonian, Antiochian Orthodox Churches, the Orthodox Church in America, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, as well as Pope Francis made critical remarks to the law.

In addition, the law was criticised by the NGO Human Rights Watch.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has also drawn attention to this problem. It is telling that when the Committee considered the Ukrainian report, the persecution of the UOC was presented as a dispute over the administrative jurisdiction of the various Orthodox churches in the country. Even so, the Committee expressed concern at reports that disputes over the control of church property had at times escalated into physical violence and that the response of Ukrainian law enforcement authorities had been inadequate, and pointed out that the fairness of legal proceedings involving a large number of cases related to such disputes was questionable. Accordingly, the Committee recommended that Kiev ensure that changes in the status of the various Orthodox churches in Ukraine do not lead to racial discrimination against any particular ethno-religious group and that the fairness of proceedings in such cases is guaranteed.[261]

On 1 October 2025, a joint statement was issued by a number of special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council regarding the persecution of the UOC by the Kiev regime.[262] The statement expressed concern over restrictions on freedom of religion and the practice of religious rites in Ukraine, imposed under the pretext of the UOC’s ecclesiastical and canonical ties with the Moscow Patriarchate. The experts emphasised their concern regarding the decision by the Ukrainian authorities in July 2025 to strip the Primate of the UOC, Metropolitan Onufry, of his citizenship on “basis of national security”. Furthermore, the statement noted the ongoing legal proceedings against senior hierarchs of the UOC, clergy and human rights defenders, including Metropolitans Arseny, Pavel, Theodosius and Longin, Father Yevgeny Kotelnik, journalist Dmitry Skvortsov and lawyer Svetlana Novitskaya. It was noted, among other things, that journalists, bloggers and activists had been accused of promoting “Russian influence” or the “Russian World” ideology, even though this ideology is not legally defined. It was also pointed out that the Kiev authorities frequently use this ideology as a pretext for suppressing the UOC and those who defend its activities. The Special Rapporteurs regarded this persecution “as equivalent to collective punishment of members of the UOC and those who defend them”. The experts also expressed serious concern regarding the Ukrainian law “On the Protection of the Constitutional Order in the Sphere of Religious Organisations”, which, in their view, contravenes international human rights standards.

The Special Procedures of the HRC emphasised that, in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, freedom of thought, conscience and religion is not subject to restrictions even in situations of “armed conflict”. They pointed out that vague or ideologically motivated justifications for the dissolution of religious organisations, such as accusations of extremism or a “pro-Russian orientation”, are incompatible with the principle of legal certainty and contribute to the criminalisation of freedom of thought, religion or belief, as well as undermining freedom of assembly and association.

On 16 December 2025, “Orthodox Christians and Allies Day of Action” took place on Capitol Hill in Washington, with the active participation of Republican Representative Anna Luna. Around 200 believers, including representatives of local Orthodox churches in the US and human rights activists, held public demonstrations and meetings with members of the US Congress to draw attention to the persecution of the UOC by the Kiev regime. In their speeches, they listed Kiev’s crimes against the canonical church and questioned financial support for the Zelensky regime, which tramples on religious rights and freedoms.[263] The anti-Orthodox persecution in Ukraine has been covered in the American media, provoking outrage among a number of politicians, including, as far as can be judged from the media, US Vice-President James David Vance.

Particularly active efforts are being made by the Kiev regime to completely eliminate the Russian-speaking space and the possibilities of using the Russian language in the country.

Banning of the Russian language and Ukrainization of public life

Since Ukraine gained its independence, the authorities have pursued a policy of forced Ukrainisation of all spheres of public life and the assimilation of all ethnic groups living in the country in order to create a mono-ethnic state. These processes accelerated noticeably after the 2014 coup d’état. At the same time, Kiev’s policy toward different national communities has taken a differential character, which contradicts the Constitution of Ukraine, which guarantees equal rights and freedoms for all citizens.

In legislative terms, the Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks and Karaites who, according to the most optimistic Kiev estimates, make up no more than 0.1 per cent of the population now, enjoy a privileged position in Ukraine. The Law on the Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine[264] was adopted in July 2021 in the interests of these groups. It stipulates their right to study in their native language, to establish their own educational institutions and mass media, and also guarantees them protection from assimilation (other national minorities were not granted this privilege).

As for other nationalities, the Kiev regime is pursuing a consistent line of legislatively consolidating the dominant role of the Ukrainian language and reducing the possibility of using other languages in the public space, while varying in degree of severity. The Russian language, which is the mother tongue of millions of Ukrainian citizens – not only ethnic Russians, but also Belarusians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Jews, Greeks, Hungarians, and representatives of other nationalities – is subjected to the greatest repression. Therefore, the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking population have been most restricted, as the Kiev regime’s efforts have led to the gradual legislative restriction of the linguistic rights of ethnic Russians and numerous Russian-speaking members of other nationalities.

For example, in 2017, the law “On Education”[265] was adopted, which provides for the transition of Ukrainian educational institutions to the state language from 2020. At the same time, teaching in minority languages was only allowed in preschools and elementary schools.

According to the opinion of the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission,[266] many provisions of this Law are discriminatory. The PACE resolution on the Protection and Promotion of Regional and Minority Languages in Europe also criticizes it.[267] In December 2018, the then OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Lamberto Zannier, stressed that Ukraine “must remain a space for all nationalities with different languages, which they should have the right to use.”[268]

In April 2019, the Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language[269] was adopted, which enshrined the use of the Ukrainian language in all spheres of public life, except for private communication and religious ceremonies. According to the Law, any attempt to introduce official multilingualism in Ukraine is recognized as actions aimed at forcibly changing or overthrowing the constitutional order.

The decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) in February 2018 preceded this Law. This decision declared unconstitutional the Law on the Principles of State Language Policy,[270] according to which Russian was a regional language in certain regions of the country (in 13 out of 24 Oblasts). Later, at the instigation of some “language activists,” Ukrainian courts stripped Russian of its regional status in these areas.

In accordance with the Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language, two bodies, the Office of the Commissioner for the Protection of the Official Language and the National Commission on Ukrainian Language Standards, were established in 2019 to monitor the implementation of legal acts on language. In reality, the Office of the Commissioner performs the functions of a repressive mechanism, since its responsibilities include monitoring compliance with the requirements set forth in the language laws; including conducting official investigations and proposing the imposition of disciplinary or administrative sanctions on individuals or organizations that violate the language laws. In 2022 a legal provision imposing liability for debasing or disparaging the Ukrainian language came into effect thus enlarging the powers of the Commissioner. The system of fines introduced is impressive, ranging from 200 to 400 minimum wages.

In July 2021, the CCU, that at that time was headed by Aleksandr Tupitsky, expectedly recognised the above-mentioned Law on ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state language as compliant with the country’s constitution.[271] The ruiling also states that “… Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine do not constitute a cohesive social group entitled to legal protection as an ethnic or linguistic group”. People who have lived for hundreds of years in territories that are now part of Ukraine are described as a “political construct.”[272] It is noteworthy that seven judges of the Constitutional Court expressed dissenting opinions on this ruiling.

After the adoption of the Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language, its provisions came into force gradually. Thus, provisions were introduced on the mandatory use of the Ukrainian language in advertising. Scientific, service, cultural events (including theatrical performances, concerts, and show programmes) and any information in museums and exhibition centres were translated into the state language, and mandatory dubbing into Ukrainian of films on television and in cinema distribution was introduced. Meanwhile, compulsory certification of Ukrainian language skills for candidates applying for civil service positions was introduced. Compulsory publication of the Ukrainian version of the media issued in a non-state language was introduced. Russian-language content is available only as an optional. All websites and social media pages of public authorities, local governments, enterprises, institutions and organizations registered in Ukraine should have a Ukrainian-language version, which is loaded by default. All items with installed computer programs should have a Ukrainian language interface. The scientific sphere has also switched to Ukrainian. The new regulations allow the use of official EU languages in addition to Ukrainian for the publication of scientific works; however, such publications should necessarily include an abstract in Ukrainian. Since then, dissertations, monographs, and abstracts should be written in Ukrainian or English. Their defence and public scholarly events should also be carried out in the same languages.

It is worth noting that, following the strongly negative reaction from a number of European countries – primarily Hungary – to the discriminatory provisions of the laws on total Ukrainisation, amendments were made to these laws that somewhat mitigate the discriminatory regime, but only in relation to the official languages of EU member states. They are provided with the opportunity to receive basic and specialised secondary education in their native language; higher education in the native language is also permitted in private educational institutions; the quota of the total duration of programmes in the state language for television and radio broadcast is reduced from 90 to 30 per cent of broadcasting in the languages of EU countries, the distribution of election campaign materials, as well as indoor and outdoor advertising in the relevant languages, etc., is permitted.

Thus, the Russian language is doubly discriminated against (in relation to both the state language and the official languages of the EU), which was again pointed out by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe,[273] which reacted to the contradiction between the Law on Language and Ukraine’s international obligations, and also expressed fears that the Law could create inter-ethnic tensions in society. The Commission’s assessments and recommendations have been supported by OHCHR.[274]

The next step towards establishing a mono-ethnic language regime in a multinational state was the adoption of the law “On Complete High School Education” on 16 January 2020.[275] The document introduced three teaching models that depend on the language spoken by the students. Provision was made for teaching Ukraine’s indigenous peoples (which in Ukrainian law refers to the Crimean Tatars, Krymchaks, and Karaites) in their native languages throughout their studies. Representatives of national minorities whose languages are official languages of the European Union have the opportunity to receive education in these languages for the first four years, after which the number of subjects taught in Ukrainian will gradually increase from 20 to 60 per cent by the ninth grade. For all other students, the proportion of instruction in the state language should reach 80–100 per cent by the fifth grade.

On 13 December 2022, the Law on National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine was adopted as part of the requirements necessary for Ukraine’s “European integration.”[276] The document neither introduced anything new into the existing legislation regulating the situation of national minorities in Ukraine nor contributed to any real improvement in the protection of their rights and freedoms. Moreover, its text contained explicit discriminatory formulations against the Russian language (defined as “the language of the national minority, which is the state (official) language of the State recognized by the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine as the aggressor State or occupying State”) and ethnic Russians.

In December 2023, the law “On Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Consideration of the Expert Assessment of the Council of Europe and its Bodies on the Rights of National Minorities (Communities) in Certain Spheres.”[277] The document envisages adjustments to a number of laws regulating the language policy of Ukraine, including the above-mentioned ones, allegedly in order to bring the legislation in line with European norms in the sphere of ensuring the rights of national minorities. It does provide some “preferences” for national minorities speaking official EU languages. However, restrictions on the rights of Russian and Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine were further tightened and became indefinite.

The Law “On Media”, which came into force in March 2023, also contains restrictions on the use of the Russian language. This norm, in particular, tightens language quotas – from January 2024 the share of Ukrainian language on national and regional television should increase from 75 per cent to 90 per cent, on local TV channels – from 60 per cent to 80 per cent. In accordance with the amendments introduced by the above-mentioned Law of 8 December 2023 “On Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Consideration of the Expert Assessment of the Council of Europe and its Bodies on the Rights of National Minorities (Communities) in Certain Spheres”, for TV and radio broadcasters who, in addition to the state language, broadcast in indigenous or minority languages, which are official languages of the European Union or to which the provisions of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages apply, this threshold is reduced to 30 per cent. Meanwhile, the Law explicitly states that these provisions do not apply to the Russian language.

On 6 June 2024, the Law on Preschool Education[278] was adopted, which prescribes the possibility for members of indigenous peoples and national minorities to receive preschool education in their native language along with the study of the state language. Despite the fact that its Article 9 prohibits discrimination in preschool education, this right does not apply to speakers of Russian, and there are millions of them in Ukraine.

Moreover, even private subjects of educational activity, which have the right to freely choose the language of the educational process, are prohibited from choosing Russian as such.

Thus, the mentioned normative acts are aimed at total Ukrainisation and provide for the translation of all spheres of life in the country into the state language ‑ education, science, services, advertising, mass media, as well as the introduction of language quotas on radio and television, etc.

When such restrictive norms were introduced, exceptions were made for the English language, the official languages of the EU and the languages of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine. The restrictions imposed are aimed mainly at infringing the Russian language and ethnic Russians, but have also affected other national groups, including ethnic Hungarians.

It is also important to note that as a result of the adoption of the said laws, including the Laws on Education, on General Secondary Education and On Ensuring Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language, the Russian language was subjected to triple discrimination in the Ukrainian state: in respect of the state language, official languages of the EU and indigenous people’s languages.

Many parties, media and civil society activists noted that all such restrictive norms make the production in Russian and any use of such products unprofitable. Accordingly, it has become impossible for Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine to receive information in their native language.

According to the residents of Ukraine themselves, the strongest discrimination in the country is based on language. The results of a nationwide survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in October 2023 indicate that 45 per cent of Ukrainians feel harassed because of the language they use.[279]

As a result of the Kiev authorities’ policy, from September 2022, Ukrainian school curricula no longer provide for the teaching of subjects in Russian and the study of Russian either as a subject or as an elective.[280]

The Nazi essence of the Kiev regime, now in the sphere of linguistics, is convincingly illustrated by the following fact. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine has developed recommendations for the removal of works of Russian literature from library collections that are deemed propaganda, for subsequent use “as waste paper for the printing of Ukrainian books”. In 2022, about 11 million (!) Russian-language books were written off and destroyed in public libraries as part of the so-called derussification programme.[281] In 2023, that number was nearly 9 million copies.[282] In 2024-2025, this process continued. Such actions mimic the destruction of “non-German spirit” literature in Nazi Germany.

In February 2026, Ukraine’s Minister of Culture, Tatyana. Berezhnaya, announced that the government was preparing to ban not only Russian literature but also all literature in Russian-language. The basis of this decision is a petition which in 2025 garnered the necessary number of signatures for it to be considered by the authorities.[283]

Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language Taras Kremen (who held the post from 2020 to 2025) is known for numerous discriminatory statements. On 2 May 2025, he stated that the number of pupils studying in Russian in Ukrainian schools had fallen to 345, with 109 studying it as a foreign language. He referred to these children as a “remnant contingent” and promised that the situation would change for good from the following academic year.[284]

In addition, the oppressed status of the Russian language (defined as “the language of a national minority that is the state (official) language of the state recognized by the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine as an aggressor state or an occupying state”) is clearly spelled out in the 2022 Law on National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine (as amended on 21 September and 8 December 2023, in response to criticism voiced by the Venice Commission). Previously, it was planned to restore some rights related to the use of the Russian language five years after the lifting of martial law, but the amendments adopted in December 2023 (the Law “On Amending Certain Laws of Ukraine Concerning the Consideration of the Expert Assessment of the Council of Europe and its Bodies On the Rights of National Minorities (Communities) in Specific Spheres”) made the restrictions indefinite. In this way, the total discrimination of the Russian language in Ukraine has now been enshrined in law.

Taras Kremen’s proposals to ban the Russian language were taken up in a number of legislative initiatives. On 1 October 2024 the Draft Law “On Amending the Law of Ukraine ‘On Education’ regarding the creation of Ukrainian-language educational environment in educational institutions”[285] was submitted to the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine, which provided for the use of exclusively Ukrainian language both during the educational process and in any other forms of interaction taking place in the premises and on the territory of the subject of educational activity. For some reason this bill has not been approved, but this did not stop the fighters against the Russian language, and on 1 March 2025 the Verkhovnaya Rada registered a bill “On Amending Certain Laws on the Use of Language in the Educational Process”, which in order to “create a Ukrainian-language environment” prescribes that students and teachers communicate in the territory of the educational institution only in the Ukrainian language both in classes and outside of school hours. The only exception is for persons receiving education in educational institutions where there are classes or groups with instruction in minority languages, which are official languages of the EU. They will be given the right to use the language of the respective national minority in lessons and breaks along with Ukrainian. As for the Russian language, the bill specifically stipulates that private schools that have the right to choose the language of instruction may not choose “the language of the state recognized by the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine as an aggressor state or occupant state”. Obviously, the purpose of such acts is to forcibly change the ethno-cultural identity of Russian/Russian-speaking children. Both of the aforementioned draft laws remain under consideration in the relevant committees of the Rada. In addition, on 8 January 2026, a bill was submitted to the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine proposing a ban on the Russian language in private educational institutions, even though, under current legislation, private schools have the right to choose the language of instruction independently.[286]

Ukrainian Education Minister Aleksander Lisovoy also spoke out against the existence of schools that teach any subjects or even separate lessons in Russian. On 6 September 2023, he said: “We are now fighting for a value system that is radically different from the value system of the Russian Empire. We are definitely not on the same path as the Russian world. Why then do we prepare children to use Russian?”[287]. In February 2026, Aleksander Lisovoy went further and blamed the Russian language for the missile strikes on Ukraine. “If a person does not associate the arrival of a missile with the Russian language, then they have certain problems with cause-and-effect relationships,” he stated.[288]

In addition to all sorts of legal prohibitions, in order to “squeeze out” the Russian language, the forces of “civil society” (often radical organizations) were also involved, which, with the indulgence of the authorities, organized various aggressive actions against teachers who continued to use the Russian language. At the same time, repressions were launched against Russian-speaking teachers by the heads of educational institutions themselves.

To combat Russian literature, the authorities are using Ukrainian language (“mova”) activists. Thus, on 2 October 2025, “public activists,” together with the police, raided Petrovka (renamed “Pochaina”), the largest book market in Kiev, the purpose of which was “the voluntary seizure of Russian-language books for their further recycling.”[289] “We expected that sellers will knowingly refuse illegal goods. However, most of them did not deliberately work to avoid inspection; others hid books or refused to give them away”, the activists complained.

In December 2024, a scandal erupted in Odessa due to the fact that a female teacher of Ukrainian history taught lessons in Russian and allegedly distributed anti-Ukrainian theses. The female teacher was fired from her job after the start of an internal investigation. The female teacher was complained about by students who provided a recording of one of the lessons lasting more than 35 minutes.[290]

According to the Ukrainian Ombudsman for Education Nadezhda Leshchik, the Head of one of the Ukrainian Educational Institutions was fired in April 2025 after the parents of the students complained that she spoke Russian and did not respond to corrections.[291]

On 13 May 2025, a school headteacher in the Kiev oblast was dismissed for using Russian when communicating with pupils, teachers and parents, despite numerous warnings regarding the need to use the official language.[292]

On 11 November 2025, in Lvov, a debate erupted on the “Independent Television Agency” (NTA) channel regarding the use of the Russian language in Ukrainian schools, following the results of a sociological survey conducted in Kiev, which showed that a significant proportion of teachers still use Russian in their work.[293] Journalist Konstantin Andriyuk, who was present in the studio, stated that the transition to the Ukrainian language in schools should be “compulsory and strict.”[294]

He is echoed by Yaroslav Gerasim, a professor at Lvov National University, who, in an interview with the ‘Obschestvennoye’ television channel on 27 November 2025, called for repressive measures against teachers who communicate with pupils in Russian, which he described as “the language of the occupier.”[295]

In January 2026, another scandal erupted at the capital’s Natural Sciences Lyceum No. 145. An eighth-year pupil was outraged that teacher Lyudmila Bondarenko, during a remote literature lesson on the topic “Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars”, had asked pupils to analyse the work by the Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin, “The Fountain of Bakhchisaray”. The pupil began arguing with the teacher, logged out of the lesson in protest, and then made the incident public. As a result, the teacher was forced to justify herself by slandering the Great Russian poet and proving her patriotism.[296]

Ukrainian officials encourage denunciations of Russian-speaking teachers. Thus, in May 2025, the language commissioner Taras Kremen admitted that under his auspices there is a whole network of student snitches: “I do not say that we have our own representatives in every university, but I want to thank all the students who react to the facts. This is important for us, because it is a matter of self-purification <…>. Several violators from among the teaching and professorial staff based on the results of student complaints and confirmation of the facts were fired. These are decisions made by university rectors. Several teachers and professors were deprived of the right to teach at the university. Over the past year, almost 30 per cents of education-related complaints concerned the university environment.”[297]

Not only teachers, but also students themselves are subjected to bullying for using the Russian language.

Eleven-year-old Matvey Beryuchin from Krasny Liman, located on the part of the Donetsk People’s Republic occupied by Ukraine, told the Russian media about the persecution he was subjected to for preferring to communicate in Russian at school: “The teachers did not like me because I spoke Russian. There was one grandmother, a teacher too. She hated me the most. She said that I was nobody. She did not love me just because I was not Ukrainian and did not speak their language. I talk to her in Russian, but she tells me to speak in Ukrainian.”[298]

It was this method of combating Russian language in schools in July 2025 that the Education Ombudsman Nadezhda Leshchik, recommended, advising teachers to answer children that they do not understand them and refuse to communicate: “You are not obliged to speak a different language if you are not a teacher of foreign languages. You can refuse and say that you do not understand the language in which the student communicates in class or during recess. Thus, you will have a “gentle” influence on schoolchildren.”[299]

Even young children who speak Russian cannot escape harassment from zealots of the state language.

In late November 2025, Irina Savchenko-Kisileva, a teacher from Belaya Tserkov, complained on social media that a Russian-speaking girl who had been displaced had joined the kindergarten her son attends. She arrived at the kindergarten and began to bully the child. She claimed that the girl “speaks incorrectly”, pretended not to understand her, and then demanded that the kindergarten teacher “correct” the child.[300] After commentators criticised Irina Savchenko-Kisileva’s behaviour, the newly appointed language commissioner Yelena Ivanovskaya spoke out in her defence, thereby endorsing discrimination: “I categorically condemn any attempts to discredit and humiliate citizens who seek compliance with language legislation. I address Russified parents separately. A Ukrainian nursery, just like a school, is a space where a child should grow up naturally as a Ukrainian.”[301]

Even more cynical is the “story” circulating on Ukrainian social media about a little girl who was denied her St Nicholas Day present at a kindergarten in Lvov because she had written her request for it in Russian. In the parents’ chat group, the child’s mother received a rude reply: “St Nicholas has decided not to congratulate those who speak Moscow’s language”, and was advised to teach her child Ukrainian.[302] Subsequently, posts about this incident were deleted, and local authorities rushed to deny everything;[303] however, given that discrimination against Russian-speaking residents is a systematic policy of the Kiev junta and is actively enforced from above, such incidents appear highly plausible.

The bullying of Russian-speaking children, encouraged in Ukraine, is exported by residents of the country abroad. For instance, six-year-old twins Hanna and Luca, who were born and raised in Germany (their mother is Russian), faced discrimination at a school in Germany. After visiting their grandmother, the grandchildren did not want to leave. The reason was harassment at school in Germany by Ukrainian children for Russian roots. “There were girls from Ukraine in the third and fourth grades, and when they found out that my daughter spoke Russian, problems began: they spat in her face, called her names, hit her on the head and pushed her down the stairs… I tried to get the school principal to solve the problem, but everything remained the same”, said the mother of the twins.[304]

The Kiev authorities do not stop at the exclusion of the Russian language from education and scientific life. In mid-December 2022, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine passed in the first reading draft law No. 7633 (has not been adopted yet) on banning the use of “Russian sources of information” in education, which provides for a ban on the use of Russian-language literature in science and education. The document stipulated amendments to the Law on Education, according to which Ukrainian educational programme cannot contain references to literature and information sources published in Ukraine in the state language by citizens or legal entities of the Russian Federation. Similar changes are envisaged in the Law on Scientific and Scientific-Technical Activity. All of these are introduced for the sake of “protecting Ukraine’s educational and information space from the influence of the Russian imperialism”.[305] In fact, this means a complete ban on scientific literature published in Russian, on the territory of Russia or by Russian citizens. Russian-language sources may no longer be used in schools, universities, or for scientific work.

If earlier the Ukrainian authorities simply prevented the import of Russian book products (by refusing to issue appropriate licenses), then on 14 March 2022 the Committee of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine announced a ban on the import and distribution of all publishing products from Russia, including for the purpose of “preventing the cultural and informational influence of Russia on Ukrainians”.[306] Furthermore, in June 2022, regulations were passed prohibiting the import and distribution of books and other publishing products from Russia and Belarus, as well as the publication and sale of books written by Russian citizens.

Since 2017, there has been a ban on access to 468 Russian websites and social media platforms on Ukrainian territory, including Yandex, Mail.ru, VKontakte, and Odnoklassniki, as well as software products from 1C, Kaspersky Lab, and Doctor Web. In September 2020, the secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Andrey Danilov, said that the Ukrainian security services intended to track and register users of the above-mentioned social networks.[307]

In accordance with the law “On Cinematography”,[308] Ukraine is not allowed to show films and TV series about Russian security forces, as well as Russian TV and film productions created after 2014.

In June 2022, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine passed laws banning the public performance of Russian songs and their use on radio and television. Import and distribution of books and other publishing products from the Russian Federation and Belarus, publication and sale of books authored by Russian citizens were also banned (the laws came into force in June 2023).

On 7 October 2022, the law “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on Support of National Musical Productions and Restriction of Public Usage of Music by an Aggressor State”[309] came into force that bans the broadcasting of Russian music on television, radio and in public places, as well as the touring of performers from Russia.

Kiev authorities are attempting to persuade the video hosting site YouTube (whose operation is restricted in Russia) and Spotify not to recommend Russian-language content in Ukraine. Language commissioner Yelena Ivanovskaya stated this in an interview on 29 September 2025.[310] “When Spotify or YouTube automatically suggest Russian songs or TV series, it’s not a choice, but manipulation,” she stated.

On 17 July 2024, certain provisions of the Article “On Media” came into force, continuing to tighten the use of the Ukrainian language on television. From now on, the use of a non-state language on air is allowed only in the form of stable expressions, short phrases or individual words used by the participants in the programme broadcast live, except for the presenters (announcers) of the programme, if the total duration of such remarks does not exceed 10 per cent of the timing of the programme. All speeches, interviews, comments, explanations, questions, individual lines, etc. in a non-state language must be translated, dubbed or voiced in Ukrainian.[311]

In December 2024, Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways) announced that there will no longer be Russian dubbing on rail tickets. Instead, information will be posted in Ukrainian and English.[312]

On 3 December 2025, the Verkhovnaya Rada of Ukraine adopted a law removing the Russian language from the list of languages subject to protection in Ukraine under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[313]

People’s Deputy of the Verkhovnaya Rada Vladimir Vyatrovich (formerly Director of the UINM) commented on the decision as follows: “Russian is no longer protected in Ukraine under the European Charter for Languages. The Verkhovnaya Rada has just passed, with 264 votes, a bill approving the correct translation of the Charter and removing Russian and the non-existent “Moldovan” language from the ratification law. The Charter remains in force for all other languages previously covered and has been extended to Urum, Romaic, Romani, Czech, Krimchak, Karaim, and Yiddish. ”

As explained by Yelena Ivanovskaya, the new law brings Ukrainian legislation on national minorities and media into line with the “updated official translation” of the European Charter. As a result, the list of languages entitled to support and special protection has been revised. Russian has been removed from the list, “Jewish” has been replaced with “Hebrew,” and Czech has been added. The Moldovan language has also been excluded, while Romanian remains.

At the same time, an article published in the well-known British magazine The Spectator, entitled “Ukraine’s War on the Russian Language Is a Mistake,” criticises the adoption of the law.[314] According to the author, Anastasia Pilyavskaya, a lecturer at King’s College London who is currently residing in Odessa, stripping Russian of protection under the European Charter “affects the interests of millions of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, divides the country, and reinforces some of Putin’s claims about Ukraine,” which, in the context of the “war”, amounts to “self-destruction.” Anastasia Pilyavskaya writes of a “confrontation between a vocal clique, now supported by Kiev, and the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, who view these crusades as a dangerous source of division.”

This set of legislative measures, aimed at the complete removal of the Russian language from public life, contradicts both national legislation and Ukraine’s international obligations. In particular, the policy of Ukrainisation conflicts with the Constitution of Ukraine, whose Article 10 guarantees free development, use and protection of Russian and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, Article 22 states that the content and scope of existing rights and freedoms may not be restricted when new laws are adopted or when existing documents are amended, and Article 53 states the right of national minorities to study in their native language.

In this context, the Kiev regime is considering removing from the country’s constitution the provisions that protect the Russian language. Thus, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, Yelena Ivanovskaya, in her first interview after being appointed to the post, proposed removing the provisions of the Russian language from the Constitution of Ukraine. “It is necessary to eliminate symbolic inequality in legislation – in particular, to abolish the special status of the Russian language, which in the context of armed aggression of the Russian Federation is not only a means of communication, but also an instrument of destabilization,” she said.[315] Judging by such statements, it is evident that the Ukrainian authorities are unwilling to acknowledge the fact that it is precisely their policy toward the Russian language that constitutes this very “instrument of destabilization,” rather than the language itself, which remains a “means of communication” for millions of citizens of the country.

Moreover, the actions of the Kiev regime contradict Ukraine’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and several soft law acts: the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (now – OSCE), the Concluding Document of the Vienna Follow-up Meeting of the CSCE, and The Hague Recommendations Regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities.

It should be stressed that all measures aimed at removing the Russian language from public life of Ukraine were adopted, as indicated above, despite critics from the international human rights structures.

Discrimination against Russian-speaking residents was highlighted in 2025 by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.[316] With respect to the odious 2022 Law on National Minorities and its subsequent amendments, CERD noted in 2023 that the Law on National Minorities and its amendments discriminate against ethnic and ethno-linguistic minority groups whose languages are not official languages of the European Union, particularly in relation to the enjoyment of their rights to education in their mother tongue and to participate in elections as well as cultural rights. However, meanwhile, the Committee named Armenian, Romani and Russian as such languages, actually equalizing the languages of national minorities and the Russian language, which is native to a much larger part of the population. Discrepancies in the legislative framework, according to CERD, result in discrimination against and inconsistent levels of access to mother-tongue education among, recognized Indigenous Peoples, unrecognized Indigenous Peoples and ethnic and ethnolinguistic minorities. It was also noted that the Law on National Minorities suspends temporarily, for the duration of martial law and for six months after its revocation, several rights, including the right to peaceful assembly for ethnic minority groups who “identify their affiliation by ethnic origin” with the “aggressor State.” The Committee also pointed out various manifestations of discrimination against Roma.

More broadly, CERD pointed to the persisting prerequisites in Ukraine for the existence of racial discrimination, both in law and in practice. In particular, the Committee expressed concern about the lack of comprehensive statistics on the demographic composition of the population, disaggregated by ethnicity, including with regard to members of Roma communities, Indigenous Peoples, internally displaced persons and non-citizens, such as stateless persons, undocumented migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The lack of such information limits CERD’s ability to properly assess the situation of such groups, including their socio-economic status and any progress. In this regard, the Committee recommended that the Kiev authorities provide comprehensive and disaggregated statistics on the demographic composition of the population.

CERD also expressed concern that Ukrainian legislation did not prohibit racial discrimination on all grounds enumerated in Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in particular the grounds of national origin and descent, and that it did not expressly prohibit intersecting forms of discrimination. The Committee urged Kiev to revise the legislative framework, in particular Law No. 5207–VI on the Principles of Preventing and Combating Discrimination in Ukraine, in order to bring it into line with the Convention.

Moreover, CERD pointed out the absence of provisions in the legislation that explicitly criminalize racist speech and hate crimes. He also noted that racial, national and religious hatred or enmity motives were not considered by the courts as aggravating circumstances when sentencing.

In the context of the practical implementation of measures to combat racial discrimination, the CERD pointed to the need for Kiev to strengthen measures to monitor and counter racist hate speech in the media, the Internet and social networks, as well as the importance of implementing measures to combat the use of hate speech by Ukrainian politicians and influential public figures.

As for the work of executive bodies, it was pointed out that the country had no system for collecting data on racial discrimination, incitement to hatred and hate crimes, as well as a low level of complaints about racial discrimination and hate crimes. There was a low prosecution rate for racial discrimination and hate crimes, and a failure of law enforcement to adequately identify and investigate these crimes.

Moreover, during the consideration of Ukraine’s report in April 2025, an expert and co-rapporteur of the Committee, Ibrahima Guissé, noted that Ukraine’s law on national minorities (communities) “still contains certain discriminatory provisions, in particular between linguistic minorities speaking one of the official languages of the European Union and those who, like Russian, Armenian or Roma communities, do not speak any of these languages.”[317]

The pressure on citizens who use the Russian language in everyday life is not limited to formal measures. Ordinary Ukrainians who venture to use the Russian language are harassed and persecuted not only by the official authorities, but also by their fellow, wrongly “more conscientious” citizens. Numerous examples of such egregious cases are presented in the second joint Belarusian-Russian report “On the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries.” Among the most recent incidents of this kind, the following should be noted.

On 20 September 2024, in Ternopol, a local resident called the police because two men were singing songs in Russian. The law enforcement officers not only drew up protocols against them under the article “hooliganism,” but also took them to the TRC for further dispatch to the combat zone. Thus, the conditions created in Ukraine make the use of the native language for Russian-speaking citizens not only illegal but also life-threatening.[318]

In July 2025, a message appeared about the opening of the “Perekryostok” cafe in Kiev, where speaking Russian is prohibited. The owner of the facility also decided to remove raf coffee from the menu because it was invented in Russia.[319]

According to statements made by Ukrainian officials, the authorities are purposefully pursuing a policy of elimination of the Russian-speaking space in Ukraine. In particular, the Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Alexei Danilov openly stated that “the Russian language should disappear from the territory of Ukraine”.[320]

It was decided to eradicate the Russian language in Ukraine through the use of “language” patrols.

In June 2024, at one of the schools in Lvov, teachers organised such a patrol composed of children in order to monitor whether pupils communicated with one another exclusively in Ukrainian.[321]

In support of this approach, in September 2024, Ruslan Martsinkiv, Mayor of Ivano-Frankovsk, announced the creation of a “language inspectorate” in the city made up of members of “civil society” who would patrol the streets to counteract the spread of the Russian language.[322] Announcing the start of the “inspection” on 28 October 2024, the Head of Ivano-Frankovsk wrote: “We have ensured that there is not a single Moscow church in Frankovsk… We should be a 100 per cent Ukrainian-speaking city… We have no moral right to tolerate the language of the enemy.”[323]

In an interview on 24 October 2024, Taras Kremen said that “soft Ukrainisation” was replaced by “offensive” one, which “provided for strict control over compliance with the language law in all spheres of public life in Ukraine without exception.” According to him, there are now “tools and instruments to monitor, control and penalize each of the business entities.”[324]

Moreover, Ukrainian officials deny the Russian population the very right to exist on Ukrainian territory. In November 2023, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olga Stefanishina stated that there was “no Russian minority in the country, it does not exist”.[325] This view was subsequently echoed by Speaker of the Verkhovnaya Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk.

As practice shows, even the use of radical nationalists and persons close to them in spirit does not help the Ukrainian authorities to completely eradicate the Russian language, which is native to millions of the country’s citizens.

Moreover, in September 2025, Yelena Ivanovskaya, the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language, said that there were more and more Russian-speakers in Ukraine: “In 2022, we were all on alert, listening closely to how everyone spoke, as Russian was associated with the aggressor. Back then, people were ashamed to speak the attacker’s language in public. Today, human psychology of adapting to war has kicked in. And part of society is gradually reverting to old language practices.”[326] Thus, she actually confirmed that the actions of the Ukrainian authorities to ban the Russian language and impose the Ukrainian one were an attempt to forcibly change the linguistic identity of the inhabitants of Ukraine. She also admitted that her own daughter maintained social media in Russian, since in her environment all were Russian-speaking.[327]

Some Ukrainian officials have also been persecuted for using the Russian language. On 13 January 2023, the Mayor of Kharkov Igor Terekhov sued the language ombudsman Taras Kremen for repeatedly fining him for using the Russian language. Previously, in November 2022, he had been fined for using a non‑state language while speaking on the Ukrainian national telethon. At the same time, he was given a warning for the fact that the social pages of the mayor of Kharkov are in Russian. In response, Igor Terekhov said that he would continue to use Russian in his communication with Kharkov citizens, as it is spoken by 80 per cent of the citizens.

Verkhovnaya Rada former deputy Irina Farion, known for her neo-Nazi views, on the air of the program “Great Lvov is Speaking” said that the Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine who refuse to switch to the state language “deserve only one thing – complete and absolute disposal.”[328] Spreading hate speech against all Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine, she went so far as to call Russian-speaking AFU militants “the rabble.”[329] A few months later, in July 2024, she was murdered in the courtyard of her own house in Lvov, falling victim to the hatred she had cultivated.

Sowing hatred towards Russians and discriminating against them

In addition to the elimination of the Russian language from all facets of Ukrainian society, there have been ongoing initiatives to spread hostility toward Russian citizens, the Russian language and the Russian culture as a whole. Such activities were not only not condemned or responded to by the authorities, but were also undertaken by the Ukrainian leadership itself. For example, President Zelensky, in an interview published on 5 August 2021, advised Russians to get out of Ukraine.[330] The Minister of Culture Aleksandr Tkachenko stated that “there is no mention of good Russians, because there are no good Russians,” and demanded to deal with them around the world. The advisor to the President of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko called on in the social media “to find and punish” all civilians who cooperated with the Russian military servicemen in the Kiev Oblast. Boris Filatov, the mayor of Dniepropetrovsk (Dniepr) known for his hate of all things Russian, called on Facebook to “kill Russians all over the world and in large numbers.” NSDC Secretary Alexei Danilov called Russians “rats” and “pig dogs” and called for “poisoning them” and “destroying them by all means”.

Hatred of Russians was openly propagandized on national and regional television channels. Russophobic remarks and calls for the murder of Russians were frequently broadcast. For example, the official advertisement for the programme of Ukrainian journalist Yanina Sokolova on Channel 5 sounded like this: “Turn on the 5th! This infuriates the Muscovites!” In August 2022, she said on the NTA TV channel that Russians could not be taken prisoner, they should be killed, adding that she wanted “all of them to be destroyed as quickly as possible.”

Government officials demonstrate a similar Nazi attitude towards Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine. In September 2023, a Russian-speaking resident of Odessa wanted to transfer her child to home schooling, but she faced manifestations of racism from an official of the children’s service. The reason for the insults was precisely the fact that the applicant spoke Russian. The official demanded to speak with her only in Ukrainian and said that those who speak Russian are enemies of Ukraine and therefore have no rights. At the same time, she herself spoke not Ukrainian, but “surzhik,” making gross mistakes.[331]

Ukrainian cultural figures also joined in the persecution of Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.

So, on the air of Ukrainian television on 28 April 2025, actor Bogdan Benyuk, who had previously starred in Soviet and Russian films, urged to beat children for the Russian language: “You take the rod. And on *** with a rod so that he would forget forever and ever that there is a Russian language… Fight them, fight them, beat them with a rod, and hit the elders on the head with a bottle of water.”[332]

On 8 May 2025, Ukrainian writer Vitaly Kapranov called on to “bully and beat in the face” those Ukrainians who consume Russian content, “To bully at all levels, despise, mock, scoff, beat in the face. Only in this way can something be explained to them.”[333]

On 16 August 2025, notorious writer Larisa Nitsoi declared that Ukrainian children should be educated so that they “punch Musсovite children in the face.” She appealed to the parents of Russian-speaking children, “Missiles have had no effect on them, reading or understanding why the Ukrainian language should be spoken, has had no effect on them. If this has had no effect on them, we have found another lever. We threaten that their children will face problems from our children.”[334]

In Ukraine, the fight against the Russian language and Russian-speaking citizens has become something of a national sport. Fascist elements seek out victims on social networks, on the streets, at sporting events and start harassing them. In these and other cases, the issue is not even the mental stability of the above-mentioned and similar personalities, but about the policy of the authorities that allow such hate speech in public space and, moreover, do not condemn it.

Numerous examples of similar provocations were cited in the report issued by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December 2025 on violations of the rights of Russian citizens and compatriots abroad.

At the same time, a study published in December 2025 by the Ukrainian Centre for Social and Marketing Research “SOCIS” demonstrated that almost 50 per cent of residents of Ukraine speak Russian at home and use it in everyday communication.

According to the survey results, nearly 35 per cent of respondents speak both Russian and Ukrainian at home, 11.3 per cent speak only Russian, 0.5 per cent uses other languages for communication, and 0.1 per cent declined to answer. Only Ukrainian is used at home by 53.6 per cent of those surveyed.[335]

Russophobia spreads freely on the Internet and social networks. By now, many different publications, pictures, collages have been published that contain not just derogatory attitudes toward Russians, but that directly dehumanize them. Well-known are such abusive nicknames as “colorado beetles”, “vatniks”, “orcs”. Materials justifying and calling for the murder of Russians are being actively distributed.

The whole spectrum of xenophobia is typical for modern Ukraine: according to the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, the xenophobia index in 2024 compared to 2023 increased from 3.4 to 4.2.[336]

Non-governmental organizations defending the interests of the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine have repeatedly sent appeals to European regional and international structures, including the Council of Europe and the OSCE, to ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking community. However, there was no adequate response from these structures. Including NGOs reported that during their official visit to Ukraine in September 2021. OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov did not meet with representatives of Russian communities and heads of Russian-speaking human rights organizations. Similarly, the meeting of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Marija Pejčinović Burić with Russian-speaking human rights defenders was not organised.[337] The specialized structures of the European Union, to which the current Ukraine is so keen to be admitted, blatantly ignore the dismal human rights situation in that country.

Russian citizens continue to face a challenging scenario as their rights and liberties are frequently abused. In recent years, the rights of Russian-speaking activists to inviolability of person, home, and property have been constantly undermined. They are subjected to intimidation and pressure from law enforcement agencies, intelligence services and nationalist groups.

There are many examples confirming the persecution of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine. Information on the persecution of activists of the Russian-speaking communities, including Sergei Provatorov, Yuri Pogoda, Victor Shestakov, Vladimir Saltykov, and Tatyana Kuzmich, the detention of Russian sailors and truckers effectively taken hostage were given in 2024 in the first report of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus on the situation with human rights in individual countries, in the previous report of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the situation with the glorification of Nazism, the spread of neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to the escalation of contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, as well as the report of the Ministry on the violation of the rights of Russian citizens and compatriots abroad.

The reports mentioned include information on numerous measures taken by Kiev to restrict the rights of our citizens, including bans on banking services, seizure of property, etc.

Manifestations of antisemitism and intolerance

The Kiev regime not only glorifies Nazism and its accomplices of the Great Patriotic War period, but also puts into practice many of the attitudes of Hitler’s Germany. In line with most striking Nazi examples, they conduct a campaign to purge political area of undesirable figures and forces that oppose the biased domestic and foreign policy and are competitors to the ruling circles. Country’s intelligence services and judicial system are actively used for these purposes. The main reason for persecution is an independent view of the situation in Ukraine that does not coincide with the official interpretation of the Kiev regime or contains criticism of it. Very often public people who speak Russian are subjected to such far-fetched persecution. Accusations of “working for Russia” are very common – this can be adapted to almost any kind of activity of the accused person.

It went so far as to directly borrow the methods used by the Nazis (which the Ukrainian authorities began to demonstrate widely in 2022). The first and very revealing incident in this respect was the case involving the Jewish community of Kolomyia. On 11 February 2020, the head of the local Jewish community, Yakov Zalitsker, received a letter from the Ivano-Frankovsk regional subdivision of the National Police, requesting him to provide them with a complete list of all Jewish residents, including students, with their addresses and contact details. This request was explained as being part of the fight against organized crime.[338]

According to a survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, Ukraine is the second most antisemitic country in Europe. In 2016, 32 per cent of Ukrainians admitted to being intolerant of Jews, and by 2019 the proportion was 46 per cent.[339] At the same time, the position of this US‑based non-governmental organization towards Ukraine has recently softened. According to the 2023 monitoring data, the level of antisemitism was 29 per cent.[340] Furthermore, in March 2022, the organization began to justify the neo-Nazi Kiev regime having published an interview with David Fishman, professor of Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he said that neo-Nazis in Ukraine were a small and very marginal group with no political influence and who didn’t attack Jews.[341]

Among manifestations of antisemitism recorded recently are the following. On 1 January 2025, an unknown person extinguished the Hanukkah menora for the first time installed at the city memorial in Lvov.[342]

During Hanukkah, on 2 January 2025, an unidentified individual threw a Molotov cocktail at the central synagogue of Nikolaev.[343] In Lvov, another vandal was arrested on 9 January 2025 for damaging a Hanukkah display. He cut the power cable of a traditional Hanukkah candelabrum and then fled.[344]

On 11 October 2025, three teenagers attacked a synagogue in the Obolonsky district of Kiev. A group of young people, upon seeing a rabbi, began demonstratively raising their arms in a Nazi salute and shouting antisemitic slogans, after which they used tear gas spray against the community representative.[345]

On 28 November 2025, an offender set fire to the principal Jewish house of prayer in Sadgora (a suburb of Chernovtsy). The investigation established that one month earlier the suspect had attempted to set fire to a church in the same district.[346]

Antisemitic attitudes among certain groups are also maintained by the Ukrainian authorities, who are actively trying to rewrite the history of the Great Patriotic War and use such falsifications to rehabilitate Nazi criminals by distorting the real facts about the Holocaust in Ukraine and the role of Ukrainian nationalists in it. After the 2014 unconstitutional armed coup d’état, Ukrainian politicians (as well as their Western mentors, in particular the US Embassy in Kiev) stopped mentioning even in statements on the anniversaries of the tragedy that Ukrainian nationalists, including members of the OUN, organised and executed these brutal massacres. Referring to the tragic events in Babiy Yar and the fact that the Soviet Union allegedly “did not notice the tragedy” became a separate element of the “oratorical skills” of such authors, including Vladimir Zelensky and people close to him. Meanwhile, Ukrainian politicians began to “torpedo” the project to build a memorial complex in Babiy Yar, citing the alleged involvement of Russian businessmen in financing the project. Such an attitude of the Kiev regime with regard to the Babiy Yar tragedy is not surprising, since the recalling this tragedy raises many uncomfortable questions for the authorities. On the one hand, the Ukrainian collaborators committed a crime by playing a role in the tragedy. On the other hand, it is undeniable evidence that it was the Red Army that stopped the Nazi machine of mass murder by liberating Kiev. Therefore, this situation clearly demonstrates that the ideological ancestors of the Kiev regime are criminals and murderers, and that the Soviet authorities and Red Army soldiers who are now “banned” are genuine heroes.[347]

The situation of ethnic minorities in Ukraine, primarily of the Hungarian one, as well as the discrimination of people of African origin are described in the previous Reports of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as in the Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices that Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

It should be noted that this problem was highlighted in May 2025 by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which pointed out the lack of information from the Ukrainian authorities on investigations, prosecutions, convictions, and sanctions for incidents of discriminatory treatment and racist hate speech and violence against persons belonging to groups exposed to racial discrimination whilst attempting to flee Ukraine into neighbouring countries. CERD has identified people of African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American descent. And among the violations, it noted denying their access to bomb shelters, preventing them from crossing the border or pushing them to the back of queues for transportation.[348]

It should be noted, however, that international human rights mechanisms have paid attention to the issue of national minorities in Ukraine

The fact that the majority of persons belonging to ethnic or national minorities in Ukraine are at risk of discrimination and stigmatization was noted by international human rights monitoring mechanisms. The CERD noted, among other things, that the radical right-wing organizations that operate in the country, such as “Right Sector,[349]” the “Azov” Civil Corps and the Social and National Assembly, actively incite racial hatred and propagate a racist ideology.[350] There have been many instances of the dissemination of intolerant views over the Internet. Racist and antisemitic content is posted on specific web sites promoting a nationalist agenda.[351] Ukraine’s human rights organizations have noted a growth in the number of instances of xenophobia and aggression directed at foreigners by law enforcement officers. The practice of detaining and arresting individuals or conducting document checks based on a person’s race or ethnic group is still widespread.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed its concern at reports of a rise in racist hate speech and discriminatory statements in the public discourse, at rallies, including by public and political figures, in the media and on the Internet.[352]

In November 2021, the Human Rights Committee indicated that hate speech was widespread in the country and hate crimes against minorities were frequently committed by members of right-wing organizations. These minority groups included Roma, Hungarians, Crimean Tatars, etc.[353]

Human rights advocates have recorded dozens of instances of intolerant or aggressive conduct towards members of minorities or persons with alternative political views. Of particular concern are illegal actions by the members of radical nationalist organizations (“S14”, the “Right Sector”[354], “Tradition&Order”, the “National Corps”, the “National Vigilantes”, the OUN, etc.). Their violent attacks are almost entirely ignored by Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies. The right-wing radicals make no attempt to hide the fact that their activities are closely coordinated with the SBU and Interior Ministry. Moreover, Ukrainian civil servants actually take part in the persecution of this national minority.[355]

Restrictions on the Work of the Media

Ukrainian authorities have openly exerted pressure on the media, interfering in the work of those media outlets whose editorial policy and opinions contradict the position of official Kiev. Obstacles are put in the way of journalists’ independent work, and attempts are made to tighten censorship. Security services often interfere in the work of the media and public organizations that hold views that diverge from the official position.[356] Criminal prosecution remains a common means of exerting pressure on dissenting journalists by the Kiev regime. The editorial offices of news agencies have been repeatedly searched. Like in many other spheres, those journalists who have in any way demonstrated their sympathies for the “Russian world” and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are the first to be persecuted. Any attempts by journalists to publicize information that differs from the official point of view trigger accusations by Kiev officials of “distorting reality” and violating Ukrainian law. It is not surprising that the level of aggression against media workers remains also high. There have been repeated cases of right-wing radical “activists” blocking television channels undesirable to Kiev and cases of neo-Nazis simply attacking media workers.

The Ukrainian leadership maintained the continuity of its policy in terms of cleansing the information space: it began back in 2014 with the banning of 12 Russian and Russian-language TV channels. The following were included on the “black list”: “Channel One, Vsemirnaya Set”, “RTR Planeta”, NTV, “NTV Mir”, “Rossiya-24”, “Rossiya-1”, TNT, “Peterburg-5”, “Zvezda”, “Ren TV”, and “TV Tsentr – International” (TVCI). The repressive measures against the Russian media continued thereafter, with new bans and restrictions on the broadcasting of an increasing number of TV channels.

In addition, not only Russian, but also Ukrainian media resources were subject to Kiev’s restrictions. In particular, the sanctions were imposed on Taras Kozak, member of the Opposition Platform – For Life, as well as eight legal entities controlled by him, by a decree issued by Vladimir Zelensky on 2 February 2021. Thus, the broadcasting of the popular opposition TV channels 112, ZiK and NewsOne was banned. Then sanctions were imposed on the Ukrainian outlet “Strana.UA” and its editor-in-chief Igor Guzhva, as well as the TV channels “Pervyi Nezavisimyi” and “UkrLive”.

It is noteworthy that numerous pro-Western international human rights bodies, especially those dealing with the independence of the media, supported the Kiev authorities and paid no attention to the blocking of Russian resources. However, even they sometimes pointed out restrictions on the activities of Ukrainian channels. For instance, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Teresa Ribeiro, expressed concern about the sanctions imposed by the NSDC against Strana.UA and other editions, recommending that the Ukrainian authorities find a balanced and proportional solution to media-related issues that preserves media pluralism, the free flow of information and diversity of opinions in line with relevant international standards and OSCE commitments.

Recently, it was openly reported that Western structures, primarily USAID, have assisted the Kiev regime in monopolizing the information space and promoting its preferred narrative. According to “WikiLeaks”, this agency sponsored nine out of ten Ukrainian media outlets.[357] Consequently, the independence, impartiality, and objectivity of most Ukrainian media outlets raise serious doubts.

The Kiev regime has completely monopolized the information sphere. Since 2022, all news on Ukrainian television has been presented in the format of a “United News (telethon),” meaning all TV channels broadcast information deemed necessary by the country’s leadership, covering it from just a single perspective. On Ukrainian resources, this project was described as being organised “with the aim of informing the population about the security situation and the activities of state authorities.”[358]

According to KIIS, “the idea of a “unified news” telethon enjoyed wide support in 2022, but since 2023 there has been a steady decline in trust. As of February 2024, a negative trust-distrust balance was recorded for the first time.[359]

Beyond strict censorship and the promotion of a single narrative aligned with the Kiev authorities, anti-Russian sentiment is widespread in Ukrainian media. This is reinforced by legal measures introduced by the Kiev regime. On 31 March 2023, the law on Media came into force, targeting journalists deemed undesirable by the government. It imposes a ban on the publication of “materials containing popularization or propaganda of bodies of the aggressor state” and “unreliable materials” (the criteria for defining such materials are very vague), which in practice introduces a total control over the media[360] and gives an opportunity for extrajudicial blocking of any periodicals, as well as a de facto ban on the publication of any information about Russia, even if neutral. Along with this, the law tightens language quotas – from January 2024, the share of the Ukrainian language on national television should already be 90 per cent instead of 75 per cent.

The Ukrainian law on Media was criticized by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), which stated that “the coercive regulation envisaged by the bill on Media is worthy of the worst authoritarian regimes.”[361]

However, Zelensky’s regime apparently found these measures insufficient. In January 2025, Ukraine’s Verkhovnaya  Rada passed a law in its first reading requiring media to delete negative comments about officials. This applies to any comments containing accusations of corruption, legal violations, or simply offensive remarks against the regime.

The media situation in Ukraine has also drawn attention from the international community. On 19 June 2024, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) spoke out about the “shrinking press freedom in Ukraine” and “pressure on independent media,” urging authorities to protect independent journalism and the right to information in the country. The outlet notes the presence of “surveillance, threats of conscription and increased control by the authorities <…> Political pressure and obstacles for Ukrainian media are increasing.” Since the beginning of 2024, “at least five journalists have been under surveillance or threatened because of publications on corruption.”[362]

On 30 October 2024, the European Commission, in its progress report on EU candidate countries, criticized the funding of the “United News” telethon from Ukraine’s state budget, expressed doubts about its unbiased nature, and emphasized that Ukraine should “gradually restore a transparent, pluralistic, and independent media landscape.”[363]

As Ukrainian authorities expand control over mass media and enforce strict censorship, an increasing number of citizens are turning away from the “telethon” and seeking alternative sources of information. One of these is social networks and instant messengers. For comparison, in 2024 messengers were the main source of information for 47 per cent of the country’s citizens. At the same time, the corresponding indicator for the “telethon” was only 16 per cent.[364]

Suppression of opposition and political rights restriction

The Kiev regime not only glorifies Nazism and its accomplices of the Great Patriotic War period, but also puts into practice many of the attitudes of Hitler’s Germany. In line with most striking Nazi examples, they conduct a campaign to purge political area of undesirable figures and forces that oppose the biased domestic and foreign policy and are competitors to the ruling circles. The Country’s intelligence services and judicial system are actively used for these purposes. The main reason for persecution is an independent view of the situation in Ukraine that does not coincide with the official interpretation of the Kiev regime or contains criticism of it. Very often public people who speak Russian are subjected to such far-fetched persecution. Accusations of “working for Russia” are very common – this can be adapted to almost any kind of activity of the accused person.

Moreover, Kiev is creating ever new lists of “enemies of Ukraine.” In particular, the notorious Mirotvorets website, a resource that openly violates the right to privacy, continues to operate freely. The site publishes illegally collected personal data of both Ukrainian and foreign citizens who it considers to be “separatists” or “enemies of Ukraine”, including reporters, politicians, cultural figures and even Russian diplomats.

Ukrainian intelligence services and radical nationalist structures actively use this web resource to exert psychological pressure on those whomever they may accuse of “separatism and treason.” Persons who find themselves in the Mirotvorets database automatically become potential targets of reprisals on their part. The most outrageous case involved the publication in 2015 of personal data, including residential address, of writer Oles Buzina and journalist Pavel Sheremet shortly after this information was published on the website, they were killed. Ukrainian radicals were repeatedly accused of the involvement in their assassinations; however, despite numerous calls from the international community, these cases are not being investigated.

Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli, Party of Regions ex-deputy Oleg Kalashnikov, member of militia Roman Dzhumayev, Russian journalist Daria Dugina, etc. were also killed. Undesirable Ukrainian public figures were also subjected to illegal persecution. Many of them were forced to leave the territory of Ukraine, fearing for their lives. When a “blacklisted” person dies, even from natural causes, their profile is labelled as “eliminated.” This was the case with the Italian businessman and politician Silvio Berlusconi.

In numerous other similar cases of people being included in the database of the extremist Mirotvorets website, such as media representatives, their bank accounts were frozen due to the fact that they are included in the list of “enemies of Ukraine”. Moreover, the fact that Ukrainian courts use information from Mirotvorets website at all stages of judicial proceedings as an evidence base, was pointed out by the NGO Uspishna Varta which discovered over 100 court decisions on criminal cases containing materials from this website in the reasoning part.[365]

To date, more than 240 thousand people are listed in the Mirotvorets database; about 75 thousand of them are Russians. Among others, the personal information of 300 minors was published on the site. In October 2021, a 12-year old resident of Lugansk Faina Savenkova who “threatens the national security of Ukraine” was included in the Mirotvorets database. The reason was her open appeal to the members of the UN Security Council on the Children’s Day in which she drew attention to the situation of children in Donbass.

In December 2025, the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights sent an appeal to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights demanding the exclusion of data on children from the extremist website.[366]

In January 2022, Mirotvorets announced the opening of a new area of activity – combating unscrupulous law enforcement officers who allegedly fabricate criminal cases. However, the site administrators referred to this category only those investigators and prosecutors who conducted criminal proceedings against veterans of the “anti-terrorist operation” (against the population of Donbass) and members of nationalist battalions, as well as against the deputy Sofia Fedina, who made extremist statements.

International human rights mechanisms have brought attention to the problems caused by the operation of this notorious Internet resource in Ukraine. In November 2021, the UN Human Rights Committee pointed to the insufficiency of information about the results of criminal investigations into the operation of the notorious website Mirotvorets. It refers to the cases of publication of personal data of thousands of Ukrainians and other persons accused by the web resource of connections with “armed groups” or called “terrorists.”[367] The HRC attached considerable importance to this issue. This is indicated, in particular, by the fact that the recommendation to ensure the right to privacy, including in the context of the activities of the “Mirotvorets” website, was included by the Committee in the list of issues on which information must be provided within one year.

In September 2022, UNICEF called for removal of children’s names and information from the Mirotvorets website. “Publishing information about children in ways that put them at risk is completely unacceptable,” the organization stressed.[368]

According to media outlets monitoring the activities of the controversial website, in 2025 alone more than 100 minors from Russia were entered into its database. Among the children whose data were posted on the portal were also citizens of Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Israel, Uzbekistan, Moldova and others.[369] Extremists accuse them of “encroaching upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine”, as well as of “deliberately violating the state border of Ukraine”.

In August 2025, the data of 18 children were published in the “Mirotvorets” database.[370]

In September 2025, three children from Russia were entered into the “Mirotvorets” database.[371]

In October 2025, more than 70 children aged two to three were entered into the “Mirotvorets” database over a three-day period.[372]

In November 2025, the database was supplemented with the data of another 25 children from Russia aged two to three.[373]

In December 2025, the personal data of 25 children from Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Ukraine, born between 2017 and 2023, were entered into the “Mirotvorets” database.[374]

At the end of December 2025, data relating to 57 children aged between two and eleven were added to the resource’s database.[375]

In January 2026, the database of the controversial website contained information on 25 children aged two to three.[376]

Another such resource that violates the right to privacy is the recently appeared Internet resource “Bacteria of the ‘Russian World’.” It features European citizens and organizations that allegedly support the Russian Federation and its policy in various forms. It includes Russian compatriots and their organizations. To get on this proscription list, one only needs not to condemn Russia or to speak positively about something Russian. The page belongs to the organization “Texty” (texty.org.ua) and contains about 1300 personal names and 900 names of organizations from 19 European countries. The organization is funded by the Soros Foundation. It is obvious that the “new Mirotvorets,” just like its prototype, was designed to intimidate those featured in it, persecute people for dissent, and purposefully spread hatred between nations.

The Ukrainian authorities initiate politically motivated cases against undesirable persons under articles 109–114–2, 258–258–6, 260, 261, 437–442 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, cases on crimes against the foundations of national security under articles 109–114–2, on offences against civil security under articles 258–258–6, 260, 261 (under these articles, members of militia and residents of the DPR and LPR were usually convicted), on offences against peace, security and law enforcement under articles 437–442 (episodes directly related to hostilities). Besides, cases are being initiated for offenses related to disclosure of state secrets; illegal border crossing; evasion from mobilization – articles 328, 330, 332, 335–337 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; military criminal offenses (disobedience, unauthorized abandonment of a military unit by a serviceman, desertion) – articles 402–403, 407–409, 422, 427, 429–431 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine; dissemination of communist or Nazi symbols or propaganda; justification, recognition as legitimate, denial of the “armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine”; “glorification” of its participants – article 436 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.[377]

In reality, all provisions of Ukrainian criminal law are used by the Ukrainian authorities to persecute dissidents or those who speak favourably about Russia.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, as of October 2025, a total of 23,233 crimes against national security were recorded. Of these, 10,986 crimes were under Article 111–1 of the Criminal Code (collaborationism), 4,988 under Article 111 (high treason), and 1,671 under Article 111–2 (assistance to an aggressor state).[378]

According to information on the website of the same institution, as of early April 2026, 221,331 criminal cases had been initiated under articles connected with the military conflict.[379]

A significant number of such persecutions are initiated against residents of the eastern regions of Ukraine. In 2022–2023 alone, over 3,000 cases were filed under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“high treason”) (most of all in the Kharkov and Kiev Oblasts, as well as in areas of Donetsk, the Zaporozhye and Kherson Oblasts occupied by Kiev). Besides, residents of the above-mentioned regions, some of which temporarily returned under the UAF’s control, come under Articles “collaboration” (111–1) and “assistance to the aggressor state” (111–2).[380] Human rights activists note that the above statistics do not cover missing persons or victims of enforced disappearances. At the same time, some political and public figures in Ukraine acknowledge the existence of such victims, but the Kiev authorities refrain from covering this unpopular topic in the media.

According to Ukrainian human rights advocate Larisa Shesler, Chair of the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, as of the end of August 2025 there were at least between 10,000 and 15,000 political prisoners in Ukraine.[381] In one of her interviews, referring to the data from the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, she stated that a year and a half after the start of the special military operation, over 6,000 criminal cases had been initiated under the article “collaborationist activities” in the territories controlled by Kiev.[382] Shesler noted that there is virtually no one left to defend political prisoners, as many honest professional lawyers have fled the country, while numerous activists are themselves imprisoned.

It gets to the point that Ukrainian pensioners who “liked” posts on social media Odnoklassniki, VKontakte, etc. receive real terms on criminal charges. For supporting pro-Russian post, they risk imprisonment up to five years, which is equal to the convictions for theft, murder or rape. Ninety‑nine such convictions have been handed down from March to September 2022 and 176 from October 2022 to September 2023.[383]

People detained on such charges are held in terrible conditions and tortured. According to the journalist Nikita Shmelev, who himself became a victim of groundless criminal prosecution for publishing an article on the killing of civilians by members of the territorial defence forces, the main reason for detaining people is their attempts to express their opinion that differs from the official point of view of the Kiev regime. Any critical remark about the Kiev regime – whether on social media, in the press, or even in casual conversations on the street or public transport – immediately turns Ukrainian citizens into “traitors,” “separatists,” and “collaborators.” According to the SBU investigators, prosecutors and judges, most of those accused of “high treason” or “complicity in unleashing a war of aggression” passed information directly to military personnel or citizens of the Russian Federation. And this “secret” information was taken from open sources on the Internet, which was recognised in the indictments. Almost all detainees under “political” articles were severely beaten during detention. The conditions of detention of “political” prisoners differed from the conditions of detention of criminals to a much worse extent; small prison cells lacked the most basic things and household supplies. Prison staff subjected them to cruel treatment, including torture. The scale of such illegal detentions was very large. According to Nikita Shmelev, five other people arrested on similar charges were in the cell with him. At the same time, there were many more such prisoners in the detention centre – there were 172 “separatists” in the prison building alone.[384]

The fact of unlawful criminal prosecutions and torture on the above grounds was also confirmed by international human rights organizations. During the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that after Ukraine “regained some territories,” some of their residents suffered “at the hands of the Ukrainian authorities.” “Using an overly broad definition of “cooperation,” the Ukrainian authorities harassed and convicted local residents who were carrying out routine work in their local community.” He also noted that, in some cases, OHCHR “documented torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention, and violations of fair trial rights against individuals accused of collaboration activities.”[385]

The OHCHR, in its report on the human rights situation in Ukraine published in March 2023, also drew attention to this issue.[386]

Public figures and human rights activists, mainly those who advocate for the rights of Russians in Ukraine and those who speak out in favour of establishing cooperative relations with Russia, are also being persecuted on false charges. One of the illustrative examples is the well-known Ukrainian social activist Elena Berezhnaya, who actively defends the rights of the Russian-speaking population and national minorities of Ukraine. Her regular appearances at the UN, the OSCE, and other international organizations most likely became one of the main reasons for her persecution by the Ukrainian intelligence services. On 16 March 2022, Elena Berezhnaya was detained by the SBU under the pretext of suspicion of treason. A number of human rights activists drew attention to her situation. She also addressed letters herself to the Council of Europe and the OSCE. After enduring two and a half years in Kiev’s pre-trial detention center under inhumane conditions, she was sentenced by a Ukrainian court on 10 December 2024 to 14 years’ imprisonment.[387] By the time her sentence concludes, she will be 82 years old. At present, she has been released on bail. On 6 November 2025, Yelena Berezhnaya planned to lay flowers at the Eternal Flame in Park Slavy on the anniversary of the liberation of Kiev from the German-fascist invaders. There she was due to meet the Kononovich brothers after laying flowers at the Eternal Flame, they intended to proceed together to the site where the monument to the liberator of Kiev, Nikolay Vatutin, had previously stood before being demolished in 2023. However, when the Kononovich brothers arrived, they saw Yelena Berezhnaya being beaten by uniformed police officers, seized and taken away in an unknown direction. Together with the police officers, certain individuals in civilian clothing also assaulted the human rights advocate. She was held at the station for several hours and, despite her injuries and poor state of health, was denied medical assistance.[388]

Yelena Berezhnaya believes that she suffered not so much because of the event marking the liberation of the capital of Ukraine as because of her intention to restore the monument to Nikolay Vatutin in central Kiev. According to her, the monument had been demolished unlawfully. According to her, the monument had been demolished unlawfully. She also stressed that there were decisions of two courts clearly stating that the monument to Nikolay Vatutin was not subject to demolition, as it did not fall under the law on the use of communist and totalitarian symbols. Nevertheless, the then Minister of Culture, Aleksandr Tkachenko, arbitrarily removed the monument from the national register of cultural sites at the request of the Kiev city council.

“I would like to remind you that in the difficult post-war years our grandmothers and grandfathers gave their last kopecks for the construction of the monument to General Nikolay Vatutin; no state funds were spent on its production and installation. Moreover, the inscription on the pedestal was made – I draw your attention to this – in the Ukrainian language. Yet modern pro-government zealots still dismantled the monument, although it does not fall under the decommunisation law and is an architectural monument, as even former director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory Vladimir Vyatrovich confirmed,” Yelena Berezhnaya stated.[389]

Since early spring of 2022, there have been numerous cases of persecution in Ukraine of public figures that expressed independent views on the situation in the country and supported the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So, in March 2022, writer, satirist, publicist and TV presenter Yan Taksyur was detained. The reason was the literary works of the satirist, which allegedly “undermined the sovereignty of the state.” Yan Taksyur was kept in a pre-trial detention centre, although he had serious health issues. Several months later he was released on bail and is currently in the Russian Federation.

Well-known Ukrainian political scientist Mikhail Pogrebinsky was charged in absentia of high treason in June 2022. He was accused of the fact that, acting as an expert, he “repeatedly participated in television programs and talk shows, spreading the accumulated Russian messages aimed at destabilizing the socio-political situation in the country.” Earlier, in March 2022, Mikhail Pogrebinsky’s apartment was searched.

In February 2023, journalist and blogger Dmitry Skvortsov, an advocate of canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine, was detained for “justifying Russian aggression.”[390]

Against the background of persecution by the Kiev regime of the UOC, in March 2024 there were searches at the office of the Union of Orthodox Journalists – which regularly reports on the Kiev regime’s repression against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the arrests of its journalist staff.

The media also reported on the detention of activist Aleksandr Gorbenko, political scientist and journalist Dmitry Dzhangirov; political scientist Yuri Dudkin, who had taken part in live broadcasts of such channels as 112‑Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK, which were closed by the Kiev regime; anti-fascist politicians Mikhail and Aleksandr Kononovich; political scientist and blogger Gleb Lyashenko; anti-fascist activist Aleksandr Mayevsky (he managed to escape during the burning of the Trade Union House in Odessa on 2 May 2014); communist and anti-fascist Aleksandr Matyushenko; journalist of the NewsOne and NASH TV channels Max Nazarov, head of the Slavic Movement “Russia Revived” public organization Aleksandr Tarnashinskiy, lawyer Dmitry Tikhonenkov, who had defended anti-Maidan activists, journalist Yuri Tkachev, and many others.[391]

The case of brothers Aleksandr and Mikhail Kononovich is highly illustrative. The brothers, communists and anti-fascists, criticised Kiev’s nationalist course as part of their peaceful activities. Their arrest in 2022 was accompanied by accusations of actions aimed at the violent seizure of power and undermining the constitutional order, as well as organising a rally in support of Russia in Kiev. The defence and sympathisers pointed to the absence of reliable documentary proof of such a rally and to the weakness of the evidential basis, relying primarily on interpretations of public statements. By 2026, the Kononovich case had turned into a protracted process: they were under house arrest, wore electronic tags, and effectively lived under long-term restrictions on liberty without a final verdict. In February 2026, Aleksandr Kononovich was abducted by TRC officers directly before a court hearing. He was handcuffed, his telephone was taken away, and he was transported to the TRC for a military medical examination followed by transfer to a training ground. Restoration of Aleksandr Kononovich’s previous house arrest became possible only thanks to the active stance of his brother Mikhail and broad public resonance. However, the very fact of what occurred demonstrates that political cases in Ukraine are no longer confined to criminal procedure: the mobilisation system is increasingly intertwined with them and may be used as an additional lever of pressure and a source of risk to the lives of defendants.[392]

Another politically motivated criminal case demonstrates the “long memory” of the repressive machinery of the Kiev regime. This is the case against Yevgeny Zubchevsky, brother of deputy Aleksandr Zubchevsky. Both were among the organised opponents of the Maidan as early as 2014. Aleksandr Zubchevsky, then a people’s deputy, voted for the package of January laws aimed at restricting radical forms of protest, after which criminal proceedings were initiated against him and he was forced to leave the country. Twelve years later, in February 2026, the Security Service of Ukraine detained Yevgeny Zubchevsky, who had remained in Ukraine, accusing him of “adherence to the Russian world”, conducting “information-subversive activities against Ukraine”, “justifying Russian aggression”, and calling for changes to the territorial integrity of the country.[393] In effect, the position taken by the individual in 2014 had not been forgotten by the Kiev regime, which after a long period brought charges against him in a different legal form but with the same essence – marking the person as an “outsider” in the construction of a supposedly “united” Ukraine.

Other political prisoners of particular concern include:

– Energy expert and commentator Dmitry Marunich (detained by the SBU in April 2022; current whereabouts unknown);

– Historian and publicist from Kiev, author of books on the history of East Slavic peoples Aleksandr Karevin (seized by the SBU in his own apartment on 9 March 2022; fate is unknown);

– former district council deputy, disabled activist of Anti-Maidan Oleg Novikov (detained by the SBU in April 2022; his current whereabouts unknown);

– Head of the Russian community in Poltava Oblast, writer, and journalist Viktor Shestakov (detained by the SBU in July 2023; on 11 April 2024 sentenced to 15 years in prison with asset confiscation on charges of “high treason” and “justifying, considering legal and denying Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine”);

– lawyer from Kiev, UN and OSCE expert Svetlana Novitskaya, representing the interests of the former head of the Lvov regional party organization “Opposition Platform – For Life,” organizer of the “Immortal Regiment” Inna Ivanochko who is accused of treason (on 23 February 2024, she was informed of suspicion of “treason” due to the fact that in some interviews with Russian media in 2017–2022, she called things by their proper names, that is, the war in Ukraine being a civil war, and the events of 2014 on the “Maidan” – a coup d’etat. On 29 February 2024, she was placed in pre-trial detention centre without the right of bail. On 29 February 2024, she was placed in pre-trial detention without bail.[394]

Anatoly Miruta, a resident of the village of Sinyak in Buchansky district of Kiev region, spent four years and eight months in detention facilities. He was repeatedly beaten, tortured, and suffered two strokes. On 24 February 2023, he was sentenced by the Pechersky Court of the city of Kiev to ten years in a strict-regime colony with confiscation of property under Article 111–1, Part 6 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (collaborationism).[395] His entire guilt consisted in helping his fellow villagers: distributing Russian humanitarian aid, obtaining passes to leave the village in order to bury deceased elderly residents, and sheltering local inhabitants in the basement of his café from shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. At the same time, he held no positions in the Russian administration. On 19 December 2025, he was released on bail and is in a medical institution due to his state of health.[396] Consideration of the case continues in the Kiev Court of Appeal.

On 29 July 2024, SBU reported the detention of “six pro-Russian Internet agitators,” but their names were not given. One of the detainees was presented by the intelligence service as a “pseudo-expert” and an “author in several pro-Kremlin publications,” who “falsifies historical facts about the establishment and the development of the Ukrainian statehood in his pseudo-scientific works in favour of Russia.”[397] Later it became known that the detainee was Oleg Vusatyuk, candidate of philosophical sciences, state expert of the National Institute of International Security Problems in Kiev, who for many years had headed the Ukrainian Academy of Russian Studies public organization.[398], [399] The subject matter of his articles was corresponding. For example, the Russian journal “Svobodnaya mysl” (Free thought) published his article entitled “War for historical memory. How to stop the “nullification” of the Great Patriotic War.”[400]

Sentences have been passed against some public figures. For example, in May 2022, Aleksandr Matyushenko was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of “trespass against the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”[401] In November 2023, Professor Sergei Shubin, Head of the Department of Humanities at the Nikolaev Institute of Law, was sentenced to 15 years in prison (detained by SBU in June 2022). In April 2024, the previously mentioned head of the Russian Community of the Poltava Oblast, one of the active participants of the movement of foreign Russian compatriots, writer and journalist Victor Shestakov was sentenced to 15 years in prison for “high treason” and “justification of Russian aggression.”[402]

Real terms of imprisonment are imposed, including on elderly people, which, given their age, means a death sentence for them. For example, in January 2024, 82-year-old Afghan veteran, holder of the Order of the Red Star, writer and journalist Yuri Chernyshev was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment.

On 23 May 2024, the Galitsky District Court in Lvov convicted Aleksandr Kostorny, 74-year-old KGB veteran of the Ukrainian SSR, head of the Russian Society named after Aleksandr Pushkin and member of the International Society for Human Rights, of “treason” and sentenced him to 15 years in prison with asset confiscation.[403]

Following the start of the special military operation, the SBU, using the tactics of criminals and terrorists, began to harass and intimidate Ukrainian deputies and officials who accepted humanitarian cargoes from Russia or negotiated with the Russian military on the establishment of civilian evacuation corridors. On 1 March 2022, Vladimir Struk, Mayor of Kremennaya, was kidnapped by men in military uniform. Two days later his body was discovered with signs of torture. On 7 March 2022, the mayor of Gostomel, Yuri Prilipko, was found murdered. He had been negotiating with the Russian military on the organization of a humanitarian corridor for civilians. On 24 March 2022, Gennady Matsegora, mayor of Kupyansk, published a video calling on Zelensky and his administration to release his daughter, who had been kidnapped by SBU agents to put pressure on the official. The media also reported the detention of Aleksandr Brukhanov, Mayor of Yuzhnoye, Aleksandr Zamiraylo, a Cherkasy City Council member from the “Opposition Platform – For Life” party, Ilya Karamalikov, a Kherson City Council member, Vladimir Klimenko, a Mariupol City Council member, Igor Kolesnikov, a politician, Eduard Konovalov, Mayor of Stary Saltov, Victor Ladukha, Mayor of Buryn, Andrei Lazurenko, a member of Solonitsevka village council of the Kharkov Oblast.

On 25 July 2023, the SBU accused Verkhovnaya Rada former deputy, leader of the now-banned party Nashi Yevgeny Murayev,[404] of high treason. In the same month, a case of treason was initiated against Vadim Rabinovich, another former MP from the Opposition Platform – For Life party. He was arrested in absentia.[405] On charges of high treason, the Opposition Platform – For Life deputy Nestor Shufrych was arrested in September 2023 without the right to post bail. In January 2026, the Kiev Court of Appeal approved a change in his preventive measure to bail in the amount of 33 million 280 thousand hryvnias (USD 776 thousand)[406]. On 16 April 2026, he was released under round-the-clock house arrest until 9 May.[407]

The Ukrainian security forces have also begun to actively prosecute civilians, primarily Russian-speaking citizens. A significant number of criminal prosecutions are being carried out in connection with the alleged work of the accused persons for the Russian intelligence services. However, there are cases of citizens being prosecuted for publicly drawing attention to the improper behaviour of the Ukrainian military. Thus, in early April 2024, the SBU detained in Kharkov a 54-year-old director of School No. 38 who publicly complained about drug use by UAF militants on the territory of the educational institution. The woman published photos on social networks showing cleaners collecting used syringes and empty packages of drugs for drug addicts scattered by militants on the school grounds, criticising the “defenders.” A few days after, the teacher was detained, had a “preventive conversation,” and a criminal case was opened against her.[408]

At the same time, it became known about the arrest in Kharkov of six former employees of Ukrainian design institutes (traditionally, they are often suspected of working for Russia). According to the version of the so-called investigation, they were commissioned by the Russian state corporation Rosatom to develop research and design documentation for the modernisation of Russian nuclear power plants in Kursk, Rostov, Novovoronezh and Balakovo. The detained ostensibly were to help connect the Zaporozhskaya power plant to the Russian energy system as well.[409]

Similarly, the director of another Ukrainian factory “Motor Sich,” a public and political figure, Hero of Ukraine Vyacheslav Boguslayev, has been imprisoned on suspicion of “collaboration” and “aiding and abetting Russia” since October 2022.

Often representatives of the Ukrainian intelligence services directly inform the detainees that the reason for their arrest is the intention to use them to exchange them for Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

In October 2023, during the discussion at the UN Human Rights Council meeting of the OHCHR regular report on Ukraine, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Nada Al-Nashif noted that about 6,000 criminal cases related to charges of “collaboration activities” had been opened on the territory under Kiev control and their number was still growing. The OHCHR expressed its concern in this regard.[410]

Numerous detentions of dissenters in Ukraine have also come to the attention of the Western press. For example, the British newspaper Guardian made a publication on the topic on 3 February 2024.[411] In particular, it reported that in recent years, SBU had opened over 8,100 criminal proceedings related to Ukrainian citizens’ collaboration with Russia. It was also noted those convicted under these articles were held in certain prisons, where they are kept away from other prisoners. Many of those interviewed by correspondents claimed they had been pressured into signing admission of guilt. At the same time, it should be noted that although this publication has acknowledged the fact of persecution of the opposition and simply dissident citizens in Ukraine, nevertheless, all the material was compiled as a description of the cases of “traitors and collaborators,” using appropriate negative vocabulary, and does not contain the slightest sympathy for people (even their fellow professionals) victims of crimes committed by the Kiev regime.

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[1] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI24-1079c of 23 January 2025.

[2] A detailed description of the events of those years is given in the study by a team of authors “History of Ukraine” // Grigoriev M.S., Deinego V.N., Dyukov A.R., Zasorin S.A., Malkevich A.A., Manko S.A., Shapovalov V.L.. – M.: International Affairs, 2022. – 648 p. The text of the monograph is publicly available on the website of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation
https://files.oprf.ru/storage/image_store/docs2022/istoriya_Ukraini_MS_Grigoriev_dr.pdf

[3] https://eadaily.com/ru/ampnews/2026/05/02/iz-snesennogo-pamyatnika-ekaterine-ii-otlili-nagrady-za-sozhzhenie-odessitov-2-maya

[4] Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the 8th periodic report of Ukraine. November 2021. (the observations were published in February 2022) https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F8&Lang=ru

[5] https://www.nrc.no/news/2026/ukraine-four-years-of-war-leaves-displaced-on-the-brink, https://ukraine-war-analytics.com/humanitarian/internally-displaced-persons.html, https://humantraffickingsearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IOM-IDP-Estimates-UKR-16MAR2022_Round-1-full-report_v2.pdf

[6] Report by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, following his visit to Ukraine in May 2018. December 2018. https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G18/448/76/PDF/G1844876.pdf?OpenElement

[7] Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the sixth periodic report of Ukraine. April 2014. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=E%2fC.12%2fEST%2fCO%2f6&Lang=en

[8] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the eighth periodic report of Ukraine. February 2017. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CEDAW%2fC%2fUKR%2fCO%2f8&Lang=ru

[9] https://t.me/uniannet/131267

[10] https://24tv.ua/ru/zakon-o-mobilizacii-2024-kakie-izmenenija-budut-kto-ne-podlezhit_n2533812

[11] https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billinfo/Bills/Card/43452

[12] https://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2025/11/05/8005881/

[13] https://24tv.ua/ru/est-normy-protivorechashhie-konstitucii-ombudsmen-otreagiroval-na-zakonoproekt-o-mobilizacii_n2461010

[14] http://t.me/stranaua/225765

[15] https://unn.ua/ru/news/v-tise-umerlo-okolo-50-chelovek-pri-popitke-sbezhat-za-granitsu-gpsu

[16] https://t.me/stranaua/225646

[17] https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_offical/17642

[18] Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the 8th periodic report of Ukraine. November 2021. (the observations were published in February 2022) https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F8&Lang=ru

[19] https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/ukraine-military-endangering-civilians-locating-forces-residential-areas-new

[20] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the combined twenty-fourth to twenty-sixth periodic reports of Ukraine. May 2025. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F24-26&Lang=en

[21] See, for example, https://amp.tsargrad.tv/articles/chjornaja-transplantologija-na-ukraine-izvestna-propiska-doktora-smert_604078, https://tsargrad.tv/investigations/koncy-v-krematorij-ukraina-platit-za-oruzhie-vnutrennimi-organami-grazhdan_523850

[22] https://www.rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/20221027-zelenskiy-prevratil-ukrainu-v-ray-dlya-chernykh-transplantologov/

[23] https://www.rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/20240703-chernye-transplantologi-kiev-nachinaet-priznavat-pravdivost-rossiyskoy-propagandy/

[24] More detailed information on such confirmations is contained in the joint report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the human rights situation in individual countries.

[25] https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/16918997
https://t.me/ukr_leaks/3341

[26] https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/08/3/7414017/index.amp

[27] https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-society/3853263-u-nimeccini-znajsli-161-vikradenu-rosieu-ukrainsku-ditinu.html

[28] https://www.slidstvo.info/warnews/derzhavni-dity-shcho-stalosia-z-ditmy-syrotamy-pid-chas-evakuatsii-do-turechchyny/

[29] https://t.me/dmytro_lubinetzs/10779

[30] Both organizations are recognised as extremist and banned in Russia.

[31] See, for example, https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/40th-periodic-report-human-rights-situation-ukraine-treatment-prisoners; https://ukaine.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/PR41%20Ukraine%202024-12-31.pdf

[32] Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture on the seventh periodic report of Ukraine. May 2025. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CAT%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F7&Lang=en

[33] Recognised as terrorist organisation by the decision of the Southern District Military Court No. 1-247/2023 of 25 September 2023.

[34] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[35] https://aif/amp/politics/worls/imidzh-vsyo-reshetilova-obyasnila-pochemu-molchit-o-zverstvah-azova

[36] https://sledcom.ru/press/events/item/2034256/

[37] https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/doklady/obzory_posla_po_osobym_porucheniyam_mid_rossii_po_prestupleniyam_kievskogo_rezhima_r_v_miroshnika/2053986/

[38] https://sledcom.ru/press/events/item/1945992/

[39] Both organizations are designated as extremist in the Russian Federation.

[40] www.rbc.ru/rdcfreenews/561540ea9a794701a4930562?ysclid=mkva0s27pt167775513

[41] Infringement of rights and freedoms in Ukraine. Manifestation of discrimination, incitement of ethnic hatred, hate crimes and extremism. Report for the OSCE human dimension implementation meeting 2019. The Institute of legal policy and social protection, the Antifascist human rights legal league. 2019.

[42] https://strana.today/news/175167-bojtsy-upa-oun-i-unra-poluchili-v-ukraine-status-uchastnikov-boevykh-dejstvij.html (previously at https://strana.ua/news/175244-vekhovnaya-rada-predostavila-status-uchastnikov-boevykh-dejstvij-bojtsam-upa-oun-uvo-polesskaja-sech-i-unra-sut-zakona.html)

[43] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2274-20/sp:dark?lang=en#Text

[44] More details on topographic changes in Ukraine are provided below.

[45] A list of such “monuments” can be found at: https://forward.com/news/462916/nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-ukraine/

[46] Examples of such actions are given in the previous Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as in the Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices that Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

[47] https://vk.com/video-202555139_456240594

[48] https://youtube.be/u321m25rKXc?si=lnQRjB0l75HvbnXG

[49] https://ria.ru/2050327/zelenskiy-2007803441.html

[50] https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official/17434

[51] https://t.me/stranaua/221779

[52] https://t.me/stranaua/222035

[53] https://t.me/stranaua/226196

[54] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the twenty-second and twenty-third periodic reports of Ukraine. August 2016. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2fC%2fUKR%2fCO%2f22-23&Lang=ru

[55] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[56] https://remembrance.ru/2021/06/30/kiev-vozmushhen-tem-chto-evropejcy-na-ukraine-nashli-nacistov/

[57] https://i-sng.ru/publikacii/zabyli-shkolnyy-urok-istorii-pochem/

[58] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[59] Recognized as terrorist organization by the decision of the Southern District Military Court No. 1-247/2023 of 25 September 2023.

[60] https://russian.rt.com/ussr/news/997883-lavrov-nacifikaciya-ukraina

[61] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[62] https://ria.ru/20251031/vsu-2051986676.html

[63] https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official/16754

[64] https://glavcom.ua/country/incidents/u-lvovi-vidbulas-smoloskipna-khoda-do-dnja-narodzhennja-banderi-video-1038631.html

[65] https://ria.ru/20260103/protest-2066123864.html?ysclid=mky0obucdb845093019

[66] https://t.me/RusBotWien_RU/7136

[67] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/87164-zelenskij-prihlasil-papu-lva-v-kiev-i-prolobbiroval-kanonizatsiju-sheptitskoho

[68] https://www.sedmitza.ru/text/396081.html

[69] A detailed analysis of the activities of Andrey Sheptitsky is provided in the material by the Union of Orthodox Journalists titled ‘Andrey Sheptitsky: Conscience of the Ukrainian Nation or Idol of the Uniates’ dated 28 October 2019. https://spzh.eu/ru/zashhita-very/66002-andrej-sheptickij-sovesty-ukrainskoj-nacii-ili-kumir-uniatov, as well as in the material prepared by Vladislav Petrushko, an expert at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, for the project ‘Sedmitsa.RU’ titled ‘The Vatican Does Not Consider a Connection with Fascism as an Obstacle to Canonization (A Commentary in Light of Faith)’ dated 11 February 2003. https://www.sedmitza.ru/text/396081.html
In addition, Vladislav Petrushko has published scholarly works devoted to the personality of Andrey Sheptitsky and to collaborationism of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. See, for example, Petrushko, V. I. ‘On the Evolution of the Political Views of the Uniate Metropolitan Andrey Sheptitsky during the Second World War.’ In: Annual Theological Conference of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, No. 19-1. P. 312-315; Same author. Collaborationism of the Uniate Church during the Occupation of Western Ukraine in the Years of the Great Patriotic War.” In: Collection of Thematic Materials: in 2 volumes. 1 – 1 January 1970: materials. M.: Moscow State Pedagogical University, 2020. P. 13-23.

[70] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[71] https://t.me/stranaua/201460

[72] Ibid.

[73] https://ukrinform.ru/rubric–culture/2548034-v–ukraine–razrabotali–nastolnuu–igru–o–borbe–upa.html

[74] https://golospravdy.eu/eduard-dolinskij-ministerstvo-obrazovaniya-rekomendovalo-lozh-falsifikacii/, https://strana.ua/opinions/212015-sredi-detej-prodvihajut-nastolnuju-ihru-s-heroicheskimi-banderoj-i-shukhevichem

[75] https://uinp.gov.ua/informaciyni-materialy/vchytelyam/metodychni-rekomendaciyi/informaciyni-materialy-do-dnya-pamyati-ta-prymyrennya-8-travnya-20231

[76] https://antifashist.com/item/na-ukraine-v-ramkah-dekommunizacii-veteranam-sovetuyut-nadevat-sovetskie-nagrady-na-vnutrennyuyu-chast-pidzhaka-chtoby-ih-ne-bylo-vidno.html

[77] https://rg.ru/2022/12/06/verhovnyj-sud-ukrainy-ne-priznal-nacistskoj-simvoliku-divizii-ss-galichina.html

[78] https://lpnu.ua/viddil-molodizhnoi-polityky-ta-sotsialnoho-rozvytku/kontseptsiia-natsionalno-patriotychnoho

[79] https://www.kmu.gov.ua/npas/pro-skhvalennia-stratehii-utverdzhennia-ukrainskoi-na-a1322

[80] https://yavoriv-info.com.ua/novini/novini-lvivshhini/zi-shkilnogo-pidruchnika-priberut-naklep-na-ukrainskix-nacionalistiv

[81] https://dif.org.ua/article/den-peremogi-i-yogo-mistse-v-istorichniy-pamyati-ukraintsiv

[82] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[83] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3195711/Now-CHILDREN-taking-arms-Shocking-pictures-inside-Ukraine-s-neo-Nazi-military-camp-recruits-young-six-learn-fire-weapons-s-ceasefire.html
https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2018/11/12/training-kids-to-kill-at-ukrainian-nationalist-camp

[84] https://forward.com/news/462916/nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-ukraine/?amp=1

[85] Many examples illustrating cases of such enthusiasm for criminals are presented in the first and second joint reports of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation and the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries.

[86] www.president.gov.ua/documents/852026-58181

[87] https://strana.today/news/249605-deputat-partii-poroshenko-vzjal-na-poruki-oskvernitelja-pamjatnika-vatutinu.html (earlier https://strana.ua/news/249605-deputat-partii-poroshenko-vzjal-na-poruki-oskvernitelja-pamjatnika-vatutinu.html)

[88] https://strana.today/news/273216-sud-po-sternenko-kak-storonniki-radikala-izbivali-zhurnalistov-i-politsiju-foto-i-video.html (earlier https://strana.ua/news.273216-sud-po-sternenko-kak-storonniki-radikala-izbivali-zhurnalistov-i-politsiju-foto-i-video.html)

[89] https://russian.rt.com/ussr/news/997883-lavrov-nacifikaciya-ukraina

[90] Details of such actions are presented in the previous report of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation and the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as in the report of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation Regarding the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices That Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

[91] https://rg.ru/2024/05/09/kievliane-nesut-cvety-k-vechnomu-ogniu-nesmotria-na-otmenu-prazdnika.html

[92] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/20766403

[93] https://ru.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1068863.html

[94] https://t.me/ermaka2022/6162

[95] https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-regions/3948695-u-lvovi-radanski-pohovanna-z-pagorba-slavi-perenesut-na-goloskivske-kladovise.html

[96] https://ukraina.ru/20250424/pole-slavy-tolko-nashikh-geroev-tragediya-bespamyatstva-v-ukraine-priblizhaetsya-k-finalu-1062727571.html

[97] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24533259

[98] http://svr.gov.ru/smi/2025/05/zvezda-razvedchica-lyagina.htm

[99] https://dumka.media/rus/suspilstvo/1738855566-v-harkove-demontirovali-memorialnuyu-dosku-sovetskomu-marshalu-tankovyh-voysk-fotofakt

[100] https://t.me/odna_rodyna/1502

[101] https://neverforget.ru/catalog/memorial-kavaleram-ordena-slavy-i-geroyam-sssr-1941-1945-v-akhtyrke

[102] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/23980877

[103] https://www.istorex.org/post/ukraine-may-2025

[104] https://news-kharkov.ru/politics/2025/05/27/154658.html

[105] https://lenta.ru/news/2025/05/09/v-odesse-sorvali-tablichku-s-pamyatnika-marshalu-malinovskomu/amp/

[106] https://ukraina.ru/20250622/1064151717.html

[107] https://t.me/odna_rodyna/1686, https://t.me/odna_rodyna/1688

[108] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/68f9fb279a794713e7b82e08?ysclid=mltiolzsv0433110092

[109] https://t.me/odna_rodyna/2178

[110] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/26300283?ysclid=mlewh4744o355286954

[111] https://vz.ru/world/2023/12/14/1244233.html

[112] https://iz.ru/1502674/2023-04-22/v-zakarpatskoi-oblasti-ukrainy-otkazalis-snosit-pamiatnik-sovetskim-soldatam

[113] https://vz.ru/world/2023/12/14/1244233.html

[114] https://vz.ru/news/2023/12/1/1242248.html

[115] https://riafan.ru/23789952-hronika_voini_s_pamyatnikami_na_ukraine

[116] https://iz.ru/1118073/igor-karmazin/proshchai-lenin-kak-na-ukraine-zakonchilas-dekommunizatciia

[117] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[118] https://iz.ru/1450760/2023-01-05/na-ukraine-reshili-uzakonit-derusifikatciiu-radi-borby-s-pushkinym

[119] https://poltava.to/project/8222/

[120] https://suspilne.media/poltava/922487-perejmenuvanna-sil-na-poltavsini-so-zrobleno-za-2024-rik

[121] https://ria.ru/20240802/odessa-1963588656.html

[122] https://decentralization.ua/news/18645

[123] https://uinp.gov.ua/pres-centr/novyny/ponad-25-tysyach-obyektiv-toponimiyi-pereymenovano-pershi-oficiyni-dani-shchodo-realizaciyi-dekolonizaciynogo-zakonu

[124] https:/t.me/verkhovnaradaukrainy/73055

[125] https://antifashist.com/item/propaganda-rossijskoj-imperskoj-politiki-uinp-prizval-pereimenovat-filialy-ukrzaliznyci.html

[126] https://www.wsws.org/ru/articles/2023/03/14/monu-m14.html

[127] https://iz.ru/1417509/2022-10-28/v-kharkove-otkazalis-demontirovat-biust-pushkina

[128] https://iz.ru/1476101/2023-02-27/na-ukraine-otkazalis-snesti-pamiatnik-brezhnevu

[129] https://life.ru/p/1596481

[130] https://vz.ru/world/2023/12/14/1244233.html

[131] https://t.me/govoritkuban/59852

[132] https://theotherukrsine.info/2025/04/09/na-ukraine-otkazalis-pereimenovat-uliczu-michurina/?ysclid=mldru3kz1q570687835

[133] https://dzen.ru/a/aXMj1wcHs1RllC6L?ysclid=mldtc7bxwg764489523

[134] https://riafan.ru/23789952-hronika_voini_s_pamyatnikami_na_ukraine

[135] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/67bdcd6d9a7947b6b267aba1

[136] Detailed information on this can be found in the previous Joint Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus Regarding Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries, as well as in the Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Regarding the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices That Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

[137] https://www.unian.ua/society/znesennya-pam-yatnika-pushkinu-v-odesi-miskrada-uhvalila-finansove-rishennya-novini-odesi-12841479.html

[138] https://www.ukr.net/ru/news/details/kyiv/109282268.html

[139] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/679ebb8f9a79470ae16a9dbb

[140] https://suspilne.media/poltava/956941-u-poltavi-demontuvali-pamatnik-petru-i/

[141] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6953bbb19a794708fd4e6690?ysclid=mldtytiudc383887560

[142] https://antifashist.com/item/artisty-kievskoj-opery-napisali-donos-na-kolleg-kotorye-v-evrope-tancevali-v-baletah-chajkovskogo.html

[143] https://antifashist.com/item/artisty-kievskoj-opery-napisali-donos-na-kolleg-kotorye-v-evrope-tancevali-v-baletah-chajkovskogo.html

[144] https://ria.ru/20250804/pamyatnik-2033339339.html

[145] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/25986241

[146] https://ukraina.ru/20251218/1073277446.html?ysclid=mldug8o640738470790

[147] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/4579-20#Text

[148] https://t.me/uinp_gov/3408

[149] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/90002-institut-natspamjati-objavil-rekonkistu-protiv-rf

[150] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI24-1079c of 23 January 2025.

[151] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[152] https://riafan.ru/23779823-angloyazichnuyu_versiyu_stat_i_ob_allee_angelov_v_donetske_udalili_s_vikipedii

[153] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI22-411c of 2 August 2022.

[154] Alarming Incidents of White Supremacy in the Military – How to Stop It? U.S. U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Military Personnel (Committee on Armed Services) Hearing. 11 February 2020. 11 February 2020. Dr. Mark Pitcavage. Witness Statement. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AS/AS02/20200211/110495/HHRG-116-AS02-Wstate-PitcavageM-20200211.pdf; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49803732, https://strana.ua/news/230444-azov-i-neonatsisty-ssha-pochemu-v-konhresse-khotjat-priznat-polk-terroristami.html

[155] A separate report by the Russian Foreign Ministry on this topic, “On the Illegal Actions of the Kiev Regime against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its clergy and parishioners,” was published in July 2023.

[156] Melnikov S.A., P.V. Lebedev, V.A.Begdash. Chronicle of the “black decade”. Religious Persecutions in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[157] https://antifashist.com/item/unichtozhenie-pravoslaviya-na-ukraine-teper-po-zakonu-chast-1.html.

[158] https://antifashist.com/item/unichtozhenie-pravoslaviya-na-ukraine-teper-po-zakonu-chast-1.html.

[159] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/85949-elenskij-uzhe-mae-hess-nachnet-aktivnye-proverki-obshchin-upts-na-svjazi-s-rpts

[160] https://ru.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1128913.html

[161] https://t.me/Dess_Gov/864

[162] https://dess.gov.ua/zaversheno-doslidzhennia-shchodo-afiliyovanosti-monastyri-sviato-pokrovska-holosiivska-pustyn/

[163] https://tass.ru/info/17394971

[164] Melnikov S.A., P.V. Lebedev, V.A.Begdash. Chronicle of the “black decade”. Religious Persecutions in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. p.199. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[165] https://www.rbc.ru/society/02/09/2025/68b6f3e69a7947f6807469fe?ysclid=mlulkf36zn349492246

[166] https://theotherukraine.info/2025/12/11/sud-po-zapretu-kievskoj-mitropolii-upcz-otlozhili-vlast-gotovit-provokacziyu/?ysclid=mlulysmgls971348269

[167] https://t.me/stranaua/226656?single

[168] https://t.me/nikita_chekman/990

[169] https://spzh.news/ru/mysli-vsluh/70310-vlast-vkljuchilas-v-propahandu-novostilnoho-rozhdestva

[170] https://spzh.news/ru/news/75145-upts-budet-i-dalshe-prazdnovat-rozhdestvo-7-janvaja

[171] https://spzh.news/ru/news/75238-upravdelami-objasnil-pochemu-upts-ne-perekhodit-na-novyj-kalendar

[172] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/25995549

[173] https://antifashist.com/item/v-ivano-frankovskoj-oblasti-prihozhane-pcu-ne-smogli-dogovoritsya-o-date-rozhdestva.html

[174] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/694bedde9a7947349bee344f?ysclid=mlg9izylwm485349409

[175] Melnikov S.A., P.V. Lebedev, V.A.Begdash. Chronicle of the “black decade”. Religious Persecutions in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. p.199. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[176] Numerous instances of the UOC churches seizures and participation of Ukrainian radicals in these barbaric actions are provided in previous reports of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus on Human Rights Situation in Individual Countries as well as in the Report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the Situation with the Glorification of Nazism and the Spread of Neo-Nazism and Other Practices that Contribute to Fuelling Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.

[177] https://rg.ru/2022/12/14/sbu-prishla-s-obyskom-v-pravoslavnye-hramy-v-deviati-oblastiah-ukrainy.html

[178] Melnikov S.A., P.V. Lebedev, V.A.Begdash. Chronicle of the “black decade”. Religious Persecutions in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. p.199. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[179] https://antifashist.com/item/ukraincy-ne-podderzhivayut-raskolnicheskuyu-pcu-perehody-shtuchnye.html

[180] https://antifashist.com/item/sbu-obvinila-bolee-dvuhsot-svyashhennosluzhitelej-upc-v-rabote-na-kreml.html

[181]         https://ria.ru/20231104/obvinenie-1907398425.html

[182]         https://news.tek.fm/news/225951

[183] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/85936-sbu-zaochno-objavila-podozrenie-14-svjashchennosluzhiteljam-rpts

[184] https://antifashist.com/item/unichtozhenie-pravoslaviya-na-ukraine-teper-po-zakonu-chast-1.html.

[185] https://antifashist.online/item/uzniki-sovesti-ukrainskim-pravoslavnym-zhurnalistam-predyavili-novye-obvineniya.html

[186] See the abovementioned study: Melnikov S.A., P.V.Lebedev, V.A.Begdash. Chronicle of the “Black Decade”. Religious Persecutions in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. p.199. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defence of Religious Freedom: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[187] https://spzh.live/ru/news/80576-sbu-trebuet-ot-ierarkhov-upts-vse-dannye-o-khramakh-i-imushchestve-eparkhij

[188] https://pravfond.ru/press-tsentr/v-ministerstve-kultury-ukrainy-prigrozili-siloy-vyselit-monakhov-upts-iz-nizhney-lavry/

[189] https://ria.ru/amp/20230810/lavra-1889366070.html

[190] https://360tv.ru/news/obschestvo/vlasti-ukrainy-lishat-monahov-dostupa-k-korpusam-kievo-pecherskoj-lavry/, https://iz.ru/1557646/elena-vasileva/opechatnoe-slovo-v-kieve-nachalsia-silovoi-zakhvat-lavry

[191] https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-kyiv/3760404-u-niznij-lavri-pid-kontrol-zapovidnika-povernuli-vze-13-obektiv.html

[192] https://lavra.ua/lavrskij-hram-byl-opechatan-i-otobran-u-bratii-lavry

[193] https://antifashist.com/item/ministerstvo-kultury-ukrainy-otobralo-u-upc-hram-zhivonosnogo-istochnika-v-kievo-pecherskoj-lavre.html

[194] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/83406-zelenskij-ustroil-voennyj-zavtrak-v-trapeznom-khrame-lavry

[195] https://iz.ru/1807603/2024-12-15/ukrainskii-sef-povar-ustroil-kulinarnoe-sou-v-kievo-pecerskoi-lavre

[196] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/83563-ansambl-pesni-i-pljaski-vystupil-v-trapeznom-khramy-lavry

[197] https://360tv.ru/news/obschestvo/vlasti-ukrainy-natselilis-na-zahvat-pochaevskoj-lavry-smi/

[198] https://www.1tv.ru/news/2023-08-19/459560-vlasti_ternopolskoy_hmelnitskoy_i_rovenskoy_oblastey_zapretili_krestnyy_hod_k_pochaevskoy_lavre

[199] https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5952188

[200] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/20999583

[201] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/82792-apelljatsionnyj-sud-otdal-skit-pochaevskoj-lavry-hosudarstvu

[202] https://russkiymir.ru/news/326748/

[203] https://spzh.live/ru/news/72173-upts-objazali-osvobodit-rjad-khramov-i-monastyrej-chernihova

[204] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/85313-na-bukovine-v-2025-hodu-pereveli-v-ptsu-16-prikhodov-upts

[205] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/85299-predstaviteli-ptsu-vmeste-s-politsiej-zakhvatili-khram-utps-vkomarovtsakh

[206] https://ria.ru/20250329/upts-2008133385.html

[207] https://t.me/kozakTv1/51371

[208] https://t.me/pravoslavir/64344

[209] https://t.me/pravoslavir/64347

[210] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/87584-v-dovbyshe-rejdery-ptsu-popytalis-zakhvatit-khram-upts

[211] https://antifashist.com/item/rejdery-pcu-zahvatili-eshhyo-odin-hram-upc-v-kirovogradskoj-oblasti.html

[212] https://antifashist.com/item/raskolniki-iz-pcu-zahvatili-hram-kazanskoj-ikony-bozhiej-materi.html

[213] https://t.me/nikita_chekman/959

[214] https://www.pravda.ru/world/1852040-moschi/

[215] https://antifashist.com/item/svyatye-po-shodnoj-cene-ukrainskoe-ministerstvo-kultury-sobiraetsya-proverit-moshhi-v-kievo-pecherskoj-lavre-na-ih-ukrainskost.html

[216] Died on 20 March 2026.

[217] https://spzh.eu/ru/zashhita-very/85618-koshchunstvo-vlasti-v-lavre-zachem-anatomy-i-veterinary-izuchajut-moshchi-svjatykh

[218] https://t.me/dubinskypro/21021, https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2025/04/22/moshchi-ili-muromca-poedut-iz-kievo-pecherskoy-lavry-na-ekspertizu-v-britaniyu-nardep

[219] https://antifashist.com/item/svyatye-po-shodnoj-cene-ukrainskoe-ministerstvo-kultury-sobiraetsya-proverit-moshhi-v-kievo-pecherskoj-lavre-na-ih-ukrainskost.html

[220] https://basilica.ro/ucraina-dispusa-sa-ofere-romanilor-moastele-sfintei-teodora-la-schimb-cu-ramasitele-unor-eroi-nationali/, https://antifashist.online/item/besovshhina-prodolzhaetsya-sbu-provodit-obyski-v-pravoslavnyh-hramah-a-moshhi-svyatyh-v-kievo-pecherskoj-lavre-budut-proveryat-na-podlinnost.html

[221] https://antifashist.com/item/mezhdunarodnyj-advokat-robert-amsterdam-obvinil-kiev-v-narushenii-prav-veruyushhih-upc.html

[222] https://antifashist.com/item/ukrainskij-sud-vynes-obvinitelnyj-prigovor-mitropolitu-cherkasskomu-i-kanevskomu-upc-feodosiyu.html

[223] https://risu.ua/ru/sbu-i-gbr-obyavili-podozrenie-diakonu-upc-mp-vadimu-novinskomu_n153659

[224] https://360tv.ru/news/mir/mitropolitu-upts-dali-tri-goda-tjurmy-na-ukraine/

[225] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/18462289?ysclid=lmgs853axa989219718, https://iz.ru/1557646/elena-vasileva/opechatnoe-slovo-v-kieve-nachalsia-silovoi-zakhvat-lavry

[226] https://www.currenttime.tv/a/prigovor-svyashenniku-upz-mp/32817825.html

[227] https://rg.ru/2024/12/18/na-ukraine-svishchennika-kanonicheskoj-upc-osudili-na-piat-let-tiurmy.html

[228] https://ctrana.news/news/486442-kakie-tserkvi-smohut-bronirovat-svoikh-svjashchennosluzhitelej-ot-mobilizatsii.html

[229] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/84271-v-kharkovskoj-oblasti-ttsk-pytaetsja-mobilizovat-namestnika-monastyrja-upts

[230] https://strana.today/news/489537-bratev-svjashchennikov-vitalija-i-serhija-mobilizovali-v-kharkove.html

[231] https://strana.today/news/490456-v-ternopolskoj-oblasti-mobilizovali-svjashchennika-upts-bohdana-matveeva.html

[232] https://antifashist.com/item/sotrudniki-tck-mobilizovali-svyashhennika-upc-v-uzhgorode.html

[233] https://antifashist.com/item/sotrudniki-tck-mobilizovali-svyashhennika-upc-v-uzhgorode.html

[234] https://antifashist.com/item/svyashhennik-vladimir-volynskoj-eparhii-upc-byl-zaderzhan-tck-posle-provedeniya-sluzhby-i-srazu-otpravlen-na-poligon.html

[235] https://antifashist.com/item/na-volyni-tck-prodolzhayut-mobilizaciyu-svyashhennikov-upc.html

[236] https://antifashist.com/item/na-ukraine-prodolzhaetsya-nezakonnaya-mobilizaciya-svyashhennikov-upc.html

[237] https://antifashist.com/item/v-kieve-voenkomy-pohitili-svyashhennika-upc.html

[238] https://strana.today/news/499264-ottsa-maksima-moskalchuka-iz-upts-nasilno-mobilizovali.html

[239] https://antifashist.com/item/na-volyni-mobilizoali-ocherednogo-svyaschennika-upc.html

[240] https://www.smi.today/ua_smi/3151891-v-komarovcakh-raskolniki.html

[241] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/84971-smert-voroham-v-chernovtsakh-neizvestnye-pereveli-v-ptsu-3-khrama-upts

[242] https://spzh.eu/ru/zashhita-very/85856-khroniki-odnoho-zakhvata-na-bukovine-kohda-ptsu-bez-politsii-ne-smohla

[243] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/85955-v-stavchanakh-ptsu-zakhvatila-mikhajlovskij-khram

[244] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/86127-v-bukovinskom-sele-banilov-podhornyj-pereveli-v-ptsu-dva-khrama-upts

[245] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/86139-v-cherkassakh-ptsu-s-vlastjami-zakhvatili-andreevskij-khram-prikhozhan-ne-puskajut

[246] https://antifashist.com/item/ukrainskie-vlasti-uderzhivayut-mitropolita-arseniya-v-tyurme-radi-zahvata-kafedralnogo-sobora.html

[247] Ibid.

[248] Melnikov S.A., P.V. Lebedev, V.A. Begdash. Chronicle of the “Black Decade.” Religious Persecution in Ukraine 2014–2023. Moscow, 2023. The monograph is available on the website of the Russian Association for the Defense of Religious Freedom.: https://religsvoboda.ru/content/doklad-rars-hronika-chernogo-desyatiletiya-religioznye-goneniya-na-ukraine-2014-2023-g

[249] https://spzh.eu/ru/news/84483-chernovitskaja-ova-my-ne-proverjaem-zakonnost-sobranij-po-perekhodu-v-ptsu

[250] Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee following its consideration of the 8th periodic report of Ukraine. November 2021 (observations published in February 2022). https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F8&Lang=ru

[251] https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/40th-periodic-report-human-rights-situation-ukraine-treatment-prisoners

[252] https://ukaine.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2024-12/PR41%20Ukraine%202024-12-31.pdf

[253] https://www.protiktor.com/rus/srua-un-communication/

[254] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=28562
The request was sent by the Special Procedures to the Ukrainian authorities on 8 November 2023, but was made public two months later, along with the response, in accordance with the practice of the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council.

[255] https://www.protiktor.com/rus/srua-un-communication/

[256] https://strana.today/news/447901-zapret-dejatelnosti-ukrainskoj-pravoslavnoj-tserkvi-vsts-vystupili-protiv-zakonoproekta.html

[257] https://www.pnp.ru/politics/kiev-sobiraetsya-zapretit-ukrainskuyu-pravoslavnuyu-cerkov-vopreki-svoey-zhe-konstitucii.html

[258] https://spzh.news/ru/news/77895-juristy-prizvali-liderov-ssha-britanii-i-es-vmeshatsja-v-situatsiju-vokruh-upts

[259] https://antifashist.online/item/fashistskaya-politika-i-otkrytyj-terror-agoniziruyushhij-kievskij-rezhim-otygryvaetsya-na-pravoslavnyh-svyashhennikah.html

[260] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-003695_EN.html

[261] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination following its consideration of the 24th to 26th periodic reports of Ukraine. May 2025. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F24-26&Lang=en

[262] https://www.unchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/ukraine-un-experts-warn-persecution-against-ukrainian-orthodox-church

[263] https://orthochristian.com/174601.html

[264] https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=36748189

[265] https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=37708387

[266] https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-AD(2017)030-e

[267] https://pace.coe.int/en/files/23532#trace-1

[268] https://ria.ru/20181206/1547556068.html

[269] https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=33624660

[270] https://ria.ru/20180228/1515481546.html

[271] https://tass-ru.turbopages.org/turbo/tass.ru/s/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/11902213

[272] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/v001p710-21

[273] https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-AD(2019)032-e

[274] Report of OHCHR on the situation with Human Rights in Ukraine. 16 February– 31 July 2020 . https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/30thReportUkraine_RU.pdf

[275] https://iz.ru/986778/2020-03-13/prezident-ukrainy-podpisal-zakon-ob-obrazovanii

[276] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2827-20

[277] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3504-20

[278] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3788-20

[279] https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/653a39b5707b3/

[280] https://ru.osvita.ua/doc/files/news/866/86629/1_Rishennya.pdf

[281] https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/63e1f2a79a79470c4ae86e5b

[282] https://suspilne.media/culture/750451-66-z-usih-spisanih-knizok-z-ukrainskih-publicnih-bibliotek-za-ostanni-dva-roki-rosijskou-movou/

[283] https://strana.news/news/500146-v-ukraine-mohut-zapretit-rossijskuju-i-russkojazychnuju-literaturu.html

[284] https://informator.ua/uk/skilki-shkolyariv-v-ukrajni-navchayutsya-rosiyskoyu-movoyu-resultat-divuye

[285] https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billinfo/Bills/Card/44959

[286] https://itd.rada.gov.ua/billinfo/Bills/Card/59466

[287] https://t.me/stranaua/121684

[288] https://t.me/stranaua/226310

[289] https://antifashist.com/item/fashizm-nachinaetsya-s-zapreta-knig-ukraincy-vozmushheny-izyatiem-aktivistami-russkoyazychnyh-knig-na-knizhnom-rynke-v-kieve.html

[290] https://www.rbc.ua/ukr/news/odesi-vchitelka-istoriyi-vela-uroki-rosiyskoyu-1734714869.html/amp

[291] https://ria.ru/20250513/ukraina-2016681891.html?ysclid=mg80rc0btj490537353

[292] https://iz.ru/1885403/2025-05-13/na-ukraine-uvolili-direktora-shkoly-za-obshchenie-na-russkom-iaxyke

[293] https://ukraina.ru/20251111/1071448790.html?ysclid=mlqko1ssvj666127008

[294] Ibid.

[295] https://t.me/Politnavigator/169646

[296] https://antifashist.com/item/kievskij-liceist-otchital-prepodavatelya-literatury-za-izuchenie-pushkina-na-urokah.html

[297] https://www.kp.ru/daily/27601.5/4927714/

[298] https://www.kp.ru/online/news/6401485/

[299] https://antifashist.com/item/ukrainskih-uchenikov-lishili-obshheniya-na-russkom-yazyke-obyazav-gotovitsya-k-frontu-so-shkolnoj-skami.html

[300] https://t.me/stranaua/218276?single

[301] Ibid.

[302] https://ukraina.ru/20251208/lvovskiy-detskiy-sad-unizil-russkoyazychnuyu-devochku-1072812625.html?ysclid=mljcmwlbkv764717592

[303] https://aif.ru/society/vo-lvove-oprovergli-informaciyu-ob-unizhenii-russkoyazychnoy-devochki-v-sadu?ysclid=mljctgvk1l891072744

[304] https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2025/08/13/ukrainskie-devochki-travili-v-shkole-nemeckih-detey-za-russkiy-yazyk

[305] https://www.rubaltic.ru/amp/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/20221219-v-pogone-za-movoy-ukraina-polnostyu-khoronit-ostatki-svoey-nauki-i-kultury/

[306] https://iz.ru/1304904/2022-03-14/na-ukraine-vveli-zapret-na-vvoz-i-rasprostranenie-vsekh-knig-iz-rossii

[307] https://www.rbc.ru/politics/25/09/2020/5f6db5599a794765448c5e81

[308] https://kodeksy.com.ua/ka/o_kinematografii.htm

[309] https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/go/2310-20

[310] https://www.rbc.ua/ukr/news/koli-spotify-chi-youtube-vidae-rosiyske-tse-1758882413.html

[311] https://mova-ombudsman.gov.ua/news/z-17-lypnia-posyliuiutsia-vymohy-shchodo-vykorystannia-ukrainskoi-v-efirakh

[312] https://suspilne.media/908149-ukrzalizniva-pribrala-z-blankiv-kvitkiv-rosijsku-movu

[313] https://ru.interfax.com.ua/news/political/1125592.html

[314] https://strana.today/news/496283-vojna-s-russkim-jazykom-podryvaet-edinstvo-ukrainy-spectator.html

[315] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24557697

[316] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth periodic reports of Ukraine. May 2025.
https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F24-26&Lang=en

[317] https://www.ochr.org/en/meeting-summaries/2025/04/experts-committee-elimination-racial-discrimination-commend-ukraines

[318] https://ria.ru/amp/20240920/ukraina-1973794986.html

[319] https://antifashist.com/item/russkoyazychnym-vhod-vospreshhen-v-kieve-otkryli-kafe-s-yazykovoj-segregaciej.html

[320] https://www.rbc.ru/politics/21/10/2022/6352a7b49a7947f3b9632b73, https://iz.ru/1414045/2022-10-21/sekretar-snbo-prizval-iskorenit-russkii-iazyk-na-ukraine

[321] https://rg.ru/2024/06/13/vo-lvove-uchitelia-organizovali-v-shkole-detskie-iazykovye-patruli.html

[322] https://tsn.ua/ukrayina/u-zahidnomu-misti-z-yavlyatsya-movni-inspetori-yak-voni-pracyuvatimut-2656860.html

[323] https://strana.today/news/474117-kohda-v-ivano-frankovske-nachnut-rabotu-jazykovye-inspektory.html

[324] https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/chi-ye-shche-misce-lagidniy-ukrajinizaciji-poyasnyuye-movniy-ombudsmen-interv-yu-304453/

[325]www.eurointegration.com.ua/rus/news/2023/11/9/7173188/

[326] https://ria.ru/20250929/ukraina-2045190641.html?ysclid=mg7svzohn0467005051

[327] https://ria.ru/20250916/ukraina-2042127949.html?ysclid=mg7t2te6qu403946965

[328] https://lenta.ru/news/2023/10/29/na-ukraine-prizvali-utilizirovat/

[329] https://suspilne.media/culture/611357-farion-rozkritikuvala-rosijskomovnih-vijskovih-ombudsmen-pisla-cogo-zvernuvsa-do policii-ta-sbu/

[330] https://kanaldom.tv/esli-ty-schitaesh-chto-my-russkie-bolshaya-oshibka-ostavatsya-zhit-na-donbasse-zelenskij-video/

[331] https://antifashist.online/item/nikakih-prav-u-vas-net-i-byt-ne-mozhet-zhitelnice-odessy-ne-pozvolyayut-perevesti-rebenka-iz-ukrainskoj-shkoly-na-domashnee-obuchenie.html

[332] https://t.me/stranaua/194084

[333] https://t.me/stranaua/195200

[334] https://t.me/stranaua/206953

[335] https://antifashist.com/item/agentstvo-socis-polovina-zhitelej-ukrainy-ispolzuet-russkij-yazyk-vopreki-politike-ego-zapreta.html

[336] https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/symvoly-i-nastroyi-chy-ye-oznaky-zrostannya-antysemityzmu-v-ukrayini-/33266149.html

[337] “The Online Environment as a Tool for Violating Rights and Freedoms in Ukraine.” Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection named after Irina Berezhnaya, 2022.

[338] https://lenta.ru/news/2020/05/13/perepis_jude/

[339] https://apnews.com/f18c9fa70b794974b214b6e9f1552cfd

[340] https://global100.adl.org/country/ukraine/2023

[341] https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62981, https://www.sott.net/article/465995-ADL-defends-Ukraines-neo-Nazis-They-dont-attack-Jews-or-Jewish-institutions?ysclid=lmgpcgkh6q921807334

[342] https://lviv.vgorode.ua/news/sobytiya/a1271562-u-lvovi-vandal-pohasiv-khanukalnu-menoru-na-jevrejskomu-memoriali-joho-zatrimali

[343] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-835566

[344] https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-835876

[345] https://nv.ua/amp/antisemitskoe-napadenie-vozle-sinagogi-v-kieve-nachato-ugolovnoe-proizvodstvo-50552216.html

[346] https://ria.ru/20251128/ukraina-2058214810.html

[347] https://www.rubaltic.ru/article/politika-i-obshchestvo/20231013-neudobnaya-istoriya-na-ukraine-obsuzhdayut-nenuzhnost-pamyati-o-zhertvakh-babego-yara/

[348] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth periodic reports of Ukraine. May 2025.

https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F24-26&Lang=en

[349] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI24-1079c of 23 January 2025.

[350] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the combined twenty-second to twenty-third periodic reports of Ukraine. August 2016. https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2fC%2fUKR%2fCO%2f22-23&Lang=ru

[351] https://strana.ua/opinions/161506-ukrainskie-natsionalisty-nachali-raspolzatsja-po-seti.html

[352] Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the combined twenty-second to twenty-third periodic reports of Ukraine. August 2016.  https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CERD%2fC%2fUKR%2fCO%2f22-23&Lang=ru

[353] Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the 8th periodic report of Ukraine. November 2021. (the observations were published in February 2022) https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F8&Lang=ru

[354] Designated as terrorist organization by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. AKPI24-1079c of 23 January 2025.

[355] Examples of such actions by the Ukrainian authorities are given in the book titled”The Online Environment as a Tool for Violating Rights and Freedoms in Ukraine.” Institute of Legal Policy and Social Protection named after Irina Berezhnaya, 2022.

[356] Monitoring of the human rights situation in Ukraine, January 2018 – April 2019. Available at: https://forbiddentoforbid.org.ua/ru/monitoring-prav-cheloveka-konets-2018-nachalo-2019/

[357] https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1887501752213409919

[358] https://cpmsdvarva.itmed.org/news/_dini_novini_zagalnoukrainskiy_informatsiyniy_telemarafon_zapushcheniy_24_lyutogo_2022_roku_z_metoyu/

[359] https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1369

[360] Under the law, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council of Ukraine received unlimited power to put pressure on any media outlets all the way up to major fines and extra-judicial bans.

[361] https://ctrana.one/news/401135-v-es-nazvali-zakonoproekt-o-media-dostojnym-khudshikh-avtoritarnykh-rezhimov.html

[362] https://strana.today/news/467053-reportjory-bez-hranits-obespokoeny-sokrashcheniem-svobody-pressy-v-ukraine.html

[363] https://www.eurointegration.com.ua/news/2024/10/30/7197351

[364] https://ratinggroup.ua/research/ukraine/uspih-chi-ni-yak-ukrayinci-ocinyuyut-reformuvannya-organiv-pravoporyadku-ta-pidtrimku-yes.html

[365] Use of materials from the Mirotvorets site in court practice. Human rights platform “Uspishna VARTA”.January 22, 2019 https://uspishna-varta.com/ru/news/ispolzovaniye-materialov-sayta-mirotvorets-v-sudebnoy-praktike

[366] https://www.ntv.ru/novosti/2942822/?ysclid=mgghp8vpyt782722341

[367] Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee on the 8th periodic report of Ukraine. November 2021. (the observations were published in February 2022) https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CCPR%2FC%2FUKR%2FCO%2F8&Lang=ru

[368] https://ria.ru/amp/20221207/mirotvorets-1836999067.html

[369] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/26099827

[370] https://t.me/rian_ru/309609

[371]https://ria.ru/20250923/mirotvorets-204364027.html

[372] https://ria.ru/20251022/mirotvorets-2049949494.html

[373] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/25567531

[374] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/26008185

[375] https://ria.ru/20251226/dannye-2064870661.html

[376] https://www.vesti.ru/article/4770696

[377] Report of the Foundation for Humanitarian Economic Cooperation “On Persecution of Dissidents and Political Repressions in Ukraine” (December 2023 – February 2024)

[378] https://gp.gov.ua/

[379] Ibid.

[380] Report of the Foundation for Humanitarian Economic Cooperation “On Persecution of Dissidents and Political Repressions in Ukraine” (December 2023 – February 2024)

[381] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/24829813

[382] https://www.mk.ru/politics/2024/01/02/desyatki-tysyach-v-tyurme-sotni-ischezli-borba-s-inakomysliem-na-ukraine.html

[383] https://www.bbc.com/russian/articles/c4nxmxm1ev7o

[384] https://antifashist.online/item/gluhonemoj-shpion-izmenniki-rodiny-pytki-rossijskih-voennoplennyh-kak-v-sizo-dnepropetrovska-izdevayutsya-nad-lyudmi-svidetelstva-ochevidca.html

[385] https://tass-ru.turbopages.org/turbo/tass.ru/s/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/20417189

[386] https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/ukraine/2023/23-03-24-Ukraine-35th-periodic-report-RU.pdf

[387] https://tass.ru/proisshestviya/22663493

[388] https://antifashist.com/item/pravozashhitnica-elena-berezhnaya-uverena-chto-sbu-i-policiya-presleduyut-ee-za-zhelanie-vocstanovit-pamyatnik-vatutinu-v-kieve.html

[389] https://antifashist.com/item/pravozashhitnica-elena-berezhnaya-uverena-chto-sbu-i-policiya-presleduyut-ee-za-zhelanie-vocstanovit-pamyatnik-vatutinu-v-kieve.html

[390] https://tass.ru/obschestvo/19638953

[391] https://ukraina.ru/20220715/1036459856.html

[392] https://ukraina.ru/20230713/1047979944.html, https://t.me/borotba/30450, https://t.me/borotba/30451

[393] https://zabor.zp.ua/new/u-zaporizhzhi-zatrimali-prikhilnika-ruskogo-miru-yakiy-zaklikav-do-okupatsii-mista-foto

[394] https://zaxid.net/sud_vidpraviv_advokatku_liderki_opzzh_u_lvovi_inni_ivanochko_v_sizo_bez_prava_zastavi_n1580778

[395] https://antifashist.com/item/politzaklyuchyonnogo-anatoliya-mirutu-posle-perenesyonnogo-insulta-vypustili-iz-sizo-pod-zalog.html

[396] https://anti-imperialism.by/2026/02/12/anatolij-miruta-uznik-rezhima-zelenskogo-luchshe-umeret-chem-predat/

[397] https://ukraina.ru/20240730/1056559813.html

[398] https://rg.ru/2024/08/06/obnulenie.html

[399] https://ukraina.ru/20240730/1056566806.html

[400] http://www.svom.info/collection/54/?page=2

[401] https://ukraina.ru/20220715/1036459856.html

[402] https://russkie.org/news/viktora-shestakova-prigovorili-k-15-godam-lisheniya-svobody/

[403] https://24tv.ua/ru/obstrel-javorivskogo-poligona-korrektirovshhik-ognja-kostornyj0poluchil-surovyj-prigovor-24-kanal_n2561648

[404] https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/18353577?ysclid=lmgo78j2vv396866235

[405] https://ren.tv/news/v-mire/1128632-ukrainskogo-deputata-rabinovicha-zaochno-arestovali-za-gosizmenu?ysclid=lmgoejpg3r636374100

[406]https://ria.ru/20260108/sud-2066884622.html?ysclid=mpl0yv4qr0852156641

[407] https://rg.ru/2026/04/16/deputata-verhovnoj-rady-shufricha-otpustili-iz-sizo-pod-domashnij-arest.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fyandex.ru%2F

[408] https://antifashist.com/item/inzhenery-atomshhiki-pedagogi-i-informatory-s-trikolorom-sbu-prodolzhaet-shtampovat-absurdnye-ugolovnye-dela-protiv-ukraincev.html

[409] Ibid.

[410] https://news.un.org/ru/story/2023/10/1445597

[411] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/02/jailed-as-collaborators-the-stories-of-ukrainians-who-ended-up-in-prison

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