Country Context
UKRAINE
Russia’s full-scale, multi-pronged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has caused widespread devastation[1] and immense human suffering.[i] Russian armed forces use explosive weapons, including widely banned cluster munitions, in populated areas. Hundreds of homes, hospitals, schools, kindergartens and other civilian structures have been damaged or destroyed, including more than 150 cultural sites.[ii] The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has found evidence of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and war crimes, including summary executions, torture, SGBV, unlawful confinement, kidnapping, detention in inhumane conditions and forced deportations.[iii] More than 13 million people fled the violence in the first year of the invasion,[2] uprooting communities, disrupting daily life and, in many cases, separating children from their parents.[iv] Those who stayed are exposed to explosions and air raid sirens, and many witness traumatic events, including the killing or maiming of family members and loved ones.
The need for truth, justice and memory in Ukraine extends much farther back than February 2022, however. Russian aggression in Ukraine began in 2014 with the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Subsequent Russian infiltration of eastern Ukraine with military personnel and financial and logistical support for pro-Russian separatists resulted in the establishment of two unrecognized republics in the Donbas region.[3] Civilians in both Crimea and eastern Ukraine have endured threats to their physical security, violations of their human rights and interference that prevents them from accessing basic needs such as food, medicine, education and housing.[v]
The Ukrainian government has advanced memory, truth and justice initiatives, sometimes in cooperation with, and other times under pressure from, civil society.[vi] Ukrainian human rights organizations such as the Center for Civil Liberties, Human Rights Centre ZMINA and Truth Hounds have also promoted international accountability efforts, such as submitting evidence to the ICC and petitioning the government of Ukraine to accede to the Rome Statute and accept ICC jurisdiction.[vii]
Memory
Post-Soviet reforms or “memory laws” implemented after the Maidan Revolution in 2014 sought to “dismantle Ukraine’s totalitarian heritage,” but have also increased tensions between competing regional narratives.[i] Polls show that since the start of the conflict, Ukrainians report a more unified national Ukrainian identity.[ii] Access to social media has facilitated the documentation of atrocities in real time, yet the challenge of providing the necessary conditions for a more unified diverse society in post-conflict Ukraine remains.[iii] This has opened up new space for public conversation and public presentation of formerly marginalized groups, such as LGBTQIA+ Ukrainians, who have subverted stereotypical narratives through their contributions to the Ukrainian struggle.[iv]
Ukrainian civil society has been instrumental in preserving the memories and perspectives of victims of human rights violations from 2014 onward. The Center for Civil Liberties, one of Ukraine’s most prominent CSOs, has created the “Map of Enforced Disappearances of Human Rights Defenders, Journalists, Activists and Representatives of Local Self-Government Bodies” to track those who have disappeared.[v] They have also maintained, since 2014, an initiative called “Prisoner’s Voice,” which produces video and audio interviews of people in Russian-controlled territories.[vi]
Heritage, culture and memory are intertwined in the social process of identity formation, a process on which the current conflict in Ukraine is having a significant impact. UNESCO has verified that Russian attacks have damaged more than 200 cultural sites in 13 different regions since February 2022.[vii] In response, a global network of volunteers has mobilized to preserve Ukrainian cultural heritage online.[viii] Ukrainian cultural institutions are launching initiatives that seek to preserve a collective memory of national identity, highlighting the connections between the current conflict and times in the past when Russia threatened Ukrainian identity. For instance, in early 2023, the Holodomor Museum aired a documentary called Erase the Nation about Russian attacks on Ukrainian heritage alongside an exhibit titled “Propaganda that Kills,” which traces historic attacks on Ukrainian identity from the Holodomor[1] to the present.[ix]
Ukrainian artists are particularly important contributors to memory. They have created spaces for mourning, processing the horrors of war and forging new solidarity.[x] For instance, a crowdsourcing project called “In Memory of the Heroes Who Died for Ukraine” aims at documenting and remembering those who’ve died on the front lines of the conflict since 2014.[xi]
Justice
Although opportunities for achieving justice are limited while the war continues, the Ukrainian government, the international community and civil society have been preparing for future accountability and reparations processes since before the latest invasion began. In 2020, the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories introduced a draft law on the Principles of State Policy of the Transition Period. This followed the 2019 creation of the Working Group on the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, which was tasked with drafting a transitional justice roadmap.[i] The roadmap has not yet been endorsed by President Volodymyr Zelensky and the draft law was withdrawn from Parliament just a few days before the Russian invasion. Nevertheless, the government of Ukraine[1] has already prosecuted Russian personnel for war crimes and crimes against humanity.[ii]
Drawing on lessons learned from the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the war in Syria, a coalition of 27 organizations are leading the massive effort of documenting both digital open source and confidential war survivor testimonies.[iii] Together with Ukrainian lawyers and international officials, they have designed new ways to catalog and verify video, photo and eyewitness accounts.[iv] Certain Ukrainian NGOs, including the Center for Civil Liberties, Coalition for Protecting Civil Society, Truth Hounds and Zmina, have produced guides on how to record evidence and train prosecutors on how to advance investigations.[v] The Reckoning Project trains journalists and researchers who are already investigating potential abuses to collect legally admissible testimonies.[vi] In recognition of its monumental efforts, the Center for Civil Liberties was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for Peace for its work documenting human rights abuses and war crimes against civilians in Ukraine.[vii]
These efforts have received significant international support from governments, intergovernmental organizations and international civil society. In March 2022, shortly after the invasion began, the ICJ issued provisional measures and requested the Russian Federation to immediately suspend its military operations.[viii] In May 2022, the ICC launched an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine from 2013 onward. Since that time, the ICC has received evidence of torture, extrajudicial killing, SGBV, kidnapping of children and illegal targeting of civilian facilities.[ix]
A core group of states is also analyzing the feasibility of a new “hybrid” tribunal to pursue accountability for the crime of aggression, complementing established mechanisms for investigating war crimes, including the ICC and Ukraine’s domestic legal process.[x] The government of Ukraine strongly supports the effort and has worked to build support for it among allies, including the United States, France and the UK.[xi] The European Union declared its support for the tribunal in December 2022, with the caveat that it should have UN backing.[xii] Since Russia holds a permanent veto in the UN Security Council, however, the UN is unlikely to back a hybrid tribunal that will hold accountable Russian perpetrators. Additionally, the “crime of aggression” remains controversial in the international community, in part because it may require prosecuting heads of state.[xiii]
Education
The war has disrupted the education of 5 million children who were living in Ukraine at the beginning of 2022.[i] Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used school buildings for military purposes, and Russia has routinely bombed civilian infrastructure, including schools. According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, 2,480 educational institutions had been damaged and 289 destroyed completely as of September 2022.[ii] The UN Commission of Inquiry has reported that although the Ukrainian government developed content for remote schooling, “many children, especially in rural areas, do not have access to the equipment, electricity or mobile and internet connectivity that would allow them to attend classes remotely.”[iii]
The substance of educational curricula has also been politicized in Ukraine. In occupied territories, Russia has worked aggressively to roll back anti-Soviet educational curricula introduced in the early 2000s.[iv] Teachers have been under pressure to teach history from a Russian perspective and the Ukrainian language is now optional.[v] Textbooks with a Ukrainian perspective have been destroyed and teachers who resist put themselves at significant personal risk.[vi]
This politicization of information is not limited to classrooms. Recently liberated cities have become testaments to Russia’s war on truth and the dangers of people living in “information vacuums,” as Russian propaganda has replaced uncensored TV, radio, print and internet. Ukrainian journalists report that “disinformation is still a source of fear and resentment,” making citizens distrustful of local elected Ukrainian officials after a city is returned to Ukrainian control due to the significant disinformation residents were subjected to under Russian control. Examples include false reports of what elected officials said or did while trying to restore control of a city, sparking resentment among those who suffered under Russian occupation.[vii]
Recommendations
International human rights organizations should continue providing a high level of technical and financial support for Ukrainian organizations documenting human rights violations and working to preserve memory.
The Ukrainian government should continue to support a collaborative effort that includes civil society to coordinate documentation of mass violations and atrocities and ensure all critical evidence reaches the relevant bodies, such as the Moscow Mechanism at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the UN International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine and the ICC.
The Ukrainian government, international aid organizations and Ukrainian CSOs should both prioritize victim-centered truth and justice initiatives that include psychosocial support as well as focus on conflicted-related sexual violations.
International aid organizations should identify ways to support preservation of Ukrainian tangible and intangible heritage and cultural sites.
The Ukrainian government. international aid organizations and Ukrainian CSOs should identify ways to assess and mitigate disinformation embedded in educational materials as well as support continuing education in rural areas.
Notes
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