The ZMINA Human Rights Center released the report “Survival or Crime: How Ukraine Punishes Collaborationism”, which states that Ukrainian legislation on responsibility for collaborationism does not take into account the norms of international humanitarian law and persecutes Ukrainians who are engaged in performing vital functions in the occupation, such as housing and communal services or health care services.
According to the Security Service of Ukraine, as of June 15, 2024, 9,179 criminal proceedings were registered under Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Collaborative Activities”). According to the data available in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, there are 1,442 verdicts in cases under Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and the largest number of them (484) are verdicts under the first part of Article 111-1 – public denial of Russian aggression.
According to Onysia Syniuk, legal analyst at the ZMINA Human Rights Center, a third of the sentences relate to public denial of Russian aggression.
“90% of these verdicts are about ‘likes’ and posts in Odnoklassniki. Although the number of sentences imposed under more serious articles increases (e.g. voluntarily taking positions in the occupiers’ administrations, judicial and law enforcement bodies), the majority of sentences are imposed under part 1 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and this shows that the focus remains on the easiest to investigate cases,” Onysia Syniuk noted.
She is convinced that lawmakers should provide for a clear distinction between actions that support life in the occupied territory and actions that threaten national security. She proves this conclusion by the example of 11 cases against employees of the State Emergency Service and 18 cases against employees of communal institutions.
It is noted that law enforcement officers and judges hardly investigate whether the suspect had the intention to harm national security, and do not take into account the atmosphere of coercion and intimidation in the occupied territory.
Changes in this approach should not be expected, because most of the 16 draft laws on collaborationism that have been registered in the parliament do not solve the problems raised, and 9 of them generally propose strengthening criminal liability for cooperation with the enemy.
“The state does not solve the problem in the legislation, the population of Ukraine under occupation is increasingly moving away from us due to the awareness that the legislation may consider them collaborators,” said Inna Vyshnevska, researcher at the Research Laboratory of the Lviv State University of Internal Affairs.
The ZMINA Human Rights Center also undertook to analyze how the topic of collaborationism is covered in the Ukrainian media and how the state bodies communication it. For this, the Center commissioned the Semantrum Monitoring Platform to analyze 339,536 publications in various Ukrainian media and 25,268 publications on the websites and pages of state bodies.
The monitoring showed that 49% of law enforcement reports contained clear negative words about people accused or suspected of committing crimes. For example, the word “criminal (perpetrator)” is the most frequently used word in relation to suspects or convicts. Moreover, most of these publications (43%) do not contain information about the sentence, and in 35% of publications with photo materials blurring filters were not applied to people’s faces. At the same time, the percentage of media publications with clear negative vocabulary is somewhat lower — 42%. However, 39% of these publications do not have information about the suspect’s conviction, which can be a marker of violation of the presumption of innocence. In addition, articles and reports on the topic of collaborationism are often emotionally colored: expressions such as “traitor”, “collaborator”, “sell-out scum” are used, which emphasizes the negative attitude towards such people and their actions.
Human rights defenders were also interested in the regional context of the problem. They held facilitated discussions in the communities of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions and found, in particular, that the residents of these communities seek to ensure that the perpetrators of the crimes are given sentences commensurate with the seriousness of their actions. Residents of the communities believe that those who helped the occupiers establish power; who worked in enemy administrations or organized referendums, elections; who worked as a law enforcement officer or “enforcer”; who deliberately spread propaganda of the Russian Federation; who voluntarily provided the occupiers with information about pro-Ukrainian citizens, etc. must be unequivocally brought to justice.
At the same time, the interviewed residents say that people should not be punished for the fact of living in the occupation; for obtaining a passport of the Russian Federation, for receiving humanitarian aid or social benefits, if it is necessary for survival. Besides, there should be no punishment for medics and “rescuers” who helped support life in the occupation.
“The respondents advocate for a punitive, criminal format of responsibility, but this responsibility should be commensurate with the person’s actions. Among the respondents, we saw both a demand for upholding standards of justice and a low assessment of the system’s ability to deliver it. It is the unrealized request for justice that becomes the driver of the severity and harshness of punishment, and communities are ready to take over these functions if the state does not do it,” said Maksym Yeligulashvili, facilitator, expert at the Coalition “Ukraine. Five in the morning”, co-author of the report.
In this regard, the ZMINA Human Rights Center emphasized that the state policy of punishment for collaborationism should take into account the opinions of communities that were under occupation or are still occupied.
The event took place with the support of the Partnership for Strong Ukraine Foundation, which is funded by the governments of Great Britain, Estonia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United States of America, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden.