Ukraine

Ukraine

What We Do

Ukraine

Since Russia’s full scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainian courts have been overwhelmed, with over 100,000 incidents under investigation and gaps in domestic law on command responsibility and crimes against humanity leaving the most culpable out of reach. LAW’s programme exists to close that impunity gap, pursuing perpetrators who fall between the reach of Ukrainian authorities and the mandate of the International Criminal Court.

LAW coordinates a women led consortium including JurFem, OPORA and PROJECTOR providing legal assistance and representation across the country, with a particular focus on survivors of sexual and gender based violence. In 2025 LAW and partners provided legal assistance to 703 people, represented 47, and secured 19 favourable decisions in Ukrainian courts.

Facts & figures (2025)
1208
People assisted
59
People represented in court
3
Active cases and violations
6
Partner organisations
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Focus areas

What we do in Ukraine

gender-equality & GBV

Gender Equality & GBV

Among the 2025 court decisions was an in absentia conviction of a Russian soldier for conflict related sexual violence as a war crime. LAW draws on its long experience of gender based crimes in armed conflict to train Ukrainian women lawyers in trauma informed documentation, and works with JurFem to monitor domestic war crimes trials and file amicus briefs promoting survivor centred practice. With PROJECTOR, LAW trained 84 Ukrainian law enforcement officers and prosecutors on working with the LGBTQ+ community.

Accountability & Rule of Law

Accountability & Rule of Law

LAW investigates priority patterns including unlawful detention, torture and conflict related sexual violence, and builds cases for jurisdictions abroad under universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction as well as before UN treaty bodies. In 2025 LAW launched the Global Tracking of Fugitives initiative with its partner InterJust, profiling 45 atrocity crime suspects, monitoring their movements in real time and presenting the initiative to the European prosecutors and law enforcement agencies who will use it.

Transformative justice

Transformative Justice

When high level peace negotiations repeatedly overlooked justice, and a leaked proposal in November 2025 suggested blanket amnesties for international crimes, Ukrainian survivor led groups rejected it outright. LAW’s role has been to make sure those voices reach the fora where such decisions are made. LAW also works on the mechanisms through which Ukrainians will eventually be compensated, including the Register of Damages.

Justice for children victims

Justice for Child Victims

In December 2025, eighteen year old Liza Dmitrieva travelled abroad for the first time to speak at LAW’s side event at the ICC Assembly of States Parties about what she lived through as a child under Russian occupation, alongside children and young adults from Myanmar, Sudan and Palestine. LAW argues that children harmed by the crime of aggression must have a voice in the justice processes that follow.

Spotlight

Families of the Kakhovka Dam victims file a complaint to the Human Rights Committee.

Kyiv (LAW) – On June 6, exactly three years after Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) and Truth Hounds have filed a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) on behalf of the families of nine people killed as a result of the attack.

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"Human rights law can play a vital role in holding Russia accountable and ensuring reparations for victims of its war of aggression."
Daniil Ukhorskiy · LAW Program Manager
TESTIMONY

Voices from the Frontline — Ukraine

All countries
"Daria’s story is not only a story of immense pain, but also one of strength and courage to speak out. The project aims to give survivors a voice and make that voice visible and impossible to ignore. What the occupiers seek is silence, what they fear most is when survivors refuse to remain silent and start to speak out. "
Oleksandra Zborovska, Ukrainian Photographer; Daria Zymenko, Artist & CRSV Survivor