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24 April 2025

UKRAINE: How should government deal with conscientious objectors in wartime?

The declaration of martial law after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 cancelled the limited right to alternative service in peacetime. Hundreds of conscientious objectors to mobilisation – on religious and non-religious grounds - have been detained, forced into the army, held illegally (often for months) on military bases, or criminally prosecuted. Requested by Ukraine's Constitutional Court, a Venice Commission brief reaffirmed states' obligation to offer alternative service. If Ukraine is to meet international standards, the government should reinstate legal access to alternative civilian service and review criminal convictions.

15 April 2025

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Russian FSB raids, court cases, fines, deportation threats

On 2 March, officers of the Russian FSB security service and Luhansk Regional Police's Anti-Extremism Centre raided the Sunday worship meeting of a Baptist congregation in Stakhanov in Russian-occupied Luhansk Region. On 10 April, a court acquitted the church's pastor. This was the latest raid on religious communities in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Officers particularly target religious communities that do not have registration under Russian law. They seize religious literature, photograph those present and hand material to Prosecutor's Offices for religious leaders to be prosecuted.

10 March 2025

UKRAINE: Conscientious objectors prosecuted, jailed as "disobedient" soldiers

Officials took Baptist Serhy Semchuk to prison in Lviv in January for his 5-year jail sentence. The Recruitment Office had told him he could serve in the military without weapons. However, later a criminal case was launched when he refused to take up weapons. "We're in such shock," a church member says. "He doesn't want to kill." Conscientious objectors to mobilisation who were not in the military also increasingly face prosecution on "disobedience" charges, including 6 Jehovah's Witnesses on trial. Many Protestant and Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors are on trial for refusing mobilisation.

4 March 2025

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Religious freedom survey, March 2025

Freedom of religion or belief and interlinked human rights are seriously violated in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Forum 18's survey analysis documents among other violations: serious systemic freedom of religion or belief violations starting with the initial March 2014 invasion; pressuring, kidnapping, torturing, jailing, and murdering religious leaders; stopping meetings for worship, banning and closing religious communities; jailing prisoners of conscience for exercising freedom of religion or belief; banning religious texts and purging libraries; and "anti-missionary" prosecutions. Until Russia's occupation of Ukrainian territory is ended, the freedom of religion or belief and other human rights violations seem set to continue.

26 February 2025

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Orthodox priest illegally transferred to Russian labour camp

Fr Kostiantyn Maksimov – who served a Ukrainian Orthodox parish in Tokmak in Russian-occupied Ukraine – arrived on 11 February at a strict regime labour camp in Russia's Saratov Region. Occupation forces seized him in May 2023. In November 2024 a closed hearing in absentia in Moscow rejected his appeal against his 14-year sentence on "espionage" charges. The Russian-installed Crimean Ombudsperson's Office refused to explain why Russian authorities illegally transfer prisoners from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine – like Fr Kostiantyn and Jehovah's Witness prisoners of conscience - to prisons in Russia.

5 February 2025

CRIMEA: Two more Jehovah's Witness prisoners of conscience jailed

On 14 January, a Russian-controlled court in the occupied Ukrainian city of Sevastopol jailed two Jehovah's Witnesses, 53-year-old Sergey Zhigalov and 55-year-old Viktor Kudinov, for six years each for organising the activities of a banned "extremist" organisation. They have appealed against the sentence. Eleven of the 13 jailed Crimean Jehovah's Witnesses have been illegally transferred to Russian prisons. Two other trials against 5 Jehovah's Witnesses are underway, including against 69-year-old Tamara Brattseva. It is illegal under international law for Russia to enforce its own laws in occupied Ukrainian territory.

19 December 2024

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Masked, armed men in third raid on church's worship meetings

Armed, masked men broke up worship meetings of a Council of Churches Baptist church in Russian-occupied Melitopol three times between October 2023 and November 2024. They checked members' passports and church literature. Police questioned the church's Pastor Dmitry Malakhov, insisting he led a religious service without informing the authorities and conducted illegal missionary activity. On 18 December, a court closed one case because of the statute of limitations, issued a warning in another and set the third for 21 January. Russian-controlled courts continue to hear "illegal missionary activity" cases. A Military Brotherhood official vandalised a seized Jehovah's Witness place of worship.

30 October 2024

UKRAINE: About 300 criminal cases against conscientious objectors

The number of new criminal cases against conscientious objectors has surged since summer 2024 after the General Prosecutor's Office wrote to local prosecutors. About 300 conscientious objectors now face criminal investigations which could lead – if cases reach court and end in convictions – to a 3 to 5 year jail term. Of the 89 cases related to 86 individuals that have already reached trial (listed in this article), courts handed down 9 jail terms (only one conscientious objector is currently in jail), with 11 suspended sentences. Trials in 66 of the 89 known cases that have reached trial are ongoing.

18 October 2024

UKRAINE: Recruitment offices, military detain, pressure and torture conscientious objectors

On 11 June, Recruitment Office officials tortured Adventist conscientious objector Pavlo Halagan to pressure him to accept mobilisation. "They tied me to the bed with chains and began to physically torture, punch and beat me," he complained. On 1 July, at a military camp, "one commander grabbed me by the neck", Baptist conscientious objector Kiril Berestovoi complained. "He hit me on the head, beat me around the heart." The torture lasted half an hour. Officials use a range of means to persuade men to accept being conscripted into the armed forces, including verbal persuasion, threats of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, arbitrary detention (sometimes for several months), and torture including deprivation of food, of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, and beatings.

8 October 2024

OCCUPIED UKRAINE: Orthodox priest handed 4-year suspended sentence

Officials in Russian-occupied Luhansk Region freed Fr Feognost (Pushkov) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on 4 October after pre-trial detention he called "107 days of hell". After house searches and examination of his writings and electronic devices, a court convicted him of "large-scale" drug trading after finding a small amount of cannabis. His 4-year suspended sentence - with 3 years of restrictions under probation - came into force after the prosecutor chose not to appeal. On 14 November, Moscow's First Appeal Court hears the appeal by another UOC priest Kostiantyn Maksimov against a 14-year strict-regime jail term on "espionage" charges.

17 September 2024

UKRAINE: Law banning Ukrainian Orthodox Church about to enter force

Law No. 3894-IX banning the Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate (ROC) and Ukrainian religious organisations affiliated with the ROC comes into force on 23 September. Its main target is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). While addressing real security concerns over the ROC's involvement in Russian aggression, the Law does not comply with legally-binding international standards of freedom of religion or belief, and significantly increases State powers to arbitrarily monitor and restrict religious communities and the expression of religious ideas. Government, public and private actors already see it as a signal to attack UOC communities and believers.

21 August 2024

UKRAINE: Real threats, but freedom of religion or belief concerns

Clerics and believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (UOC) have and are facing criminal charges of justifying Russian aggression and hate speech. Many have been prosecuted for criticising the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the state's religious policies. The state faces a real threat of the utilisation of religion to justify Russian aggression, but uses tools - imposing a blatant ban on the UOC and turning inter-Orthodox relations in Ukraine into a security issue - that are neither reasonable nor proportionate.