More than 7,600 people have been accused in Ukraine of collaborating with Russia. Some have been accused of providing information about military objectives to the invader, of participating in repressive actions, but also of glorifying the enemy through a message published on a social network, for being the janitor of a school in the occupied territories or for selling food to Russian troops. Of the 691 sentences declared until last September, only two were acquittal. The United Nations and Ukrainian human rights organizations warn that hundreds of people may be victims of vague laws that allow a margin of arbitrariness inappropriate for a rule of law.
Zmina, one of the reference centers for the defense of human rights in Ukraine, presented on October 30 in kyiv the most comprehensive study to date on the prosecution of alleged collaborators of Russia in Ukraine. The document has been prepared together with the Kharkiv Institute for Social Research (KhISR). The result is devastating because it exposes the poor articulation of the Penal Code to condemn cooperation with the invader, which allows a lax interpretation of the law, shows that two people can be sentenced with very different penalties for the same act and also demonstrates that a court can sentence a person with weak evidence.
Alena Lunova, an expert at the Zmina center, warned: “There are people who have been in occupied territories for nine years and do not know what awaits them, and Russian propaganda tells them that they will end up in prison if Ukraine regains control.” The authors of the report stressed that if this legal dysfunction is not resolved now, the future cohesion of Ukrainian society is in question. “It is a question of unity of the country in the future. Because prison for 6,000 people does not solve anything,” Andrii Chernousov, head of research at the KhISR, said at the presentation of the report.
Among the overwhelming number of crimes committed by Russia against Ukrainian civilians, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) also warns about the situation of those accused of collaborationism in its reports on the war in Ukraine. In a document presented on October 19 to the UN General Assembly, the Independent International Commission on Ukraine stressed that the law “needs to be modified to clarify the definition of ‘collaborative activities’ to avoid legal uncertainty and damage to the social cohesion”.
The Zmina center details that there are three articles of the Penal Code that can condemn the same crimes of collaboration and exaltation of the enemy, but with very different punishments. Two of these articles were approved by the legislative branch in March and April 2022, a few weeks after the invasion began, practically without parliamentary debate or with the participation of experts. The OHCHR, In a report dated October 4, it indicates that 28% of sentences are against individuals “who have worked for the occupying authorities in a civilian role, such as village heads, education system employees, officials responsible for distributing humanitarian aid, accountants, guards, secretaries, humanitarian volunteers without an official position, and even temporary security guard workers.” streets or blocks.”
The OHCHR warns that, in many of these cases, the convicted persons claim that they were forced to perform these functions. “OHCHR is concerned that many of those arrested are being prosecuted for conduct that could in principle have been coerced by the occupying force under international humanitarian law,” Nada al Nashif, UN deputy high commissioner for humanitarian affairs, said on October 10. human rights.
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The KhISR and Zmina report provides a paradigmatic example of this. A man was sentenced last August to four years in prison, 10 years without being able to hold public office, in addition to the seizure of all his assets, for having served as a guard at the public medicine warehouse in Balaklia, a municipality in the province of Kharkiv released in September 2022. He was accused of “protecting medicines of Russian origin in order to be distributed among the population of occupied territories.” The man did this work in exchange for food and basic help.
“What will we do with the 30,000 teachers in Crimea?”
Zmina points out that the greatest arbitrariness occurs with the accusations of providing “material resources” to the invader and maintaining “economic activities” with him. The regulations also do not contemplate that “when occupation in a place lasts a year or more, people must make a decision to be able to live,” Lunova stated. Onisiia Siniuk, a legal expert at Zmina, added that in the school environment, the Penal Code is also not very specific about the crimes of collaboration or dissemination of Russian propaganda. “The law does not take into account the particularities of those who have been under Russian occupation for nine years. What will we do with the 30,000 teachers in Crimea? “Send them all to prison?” Lunova asked herself.
Siniuk points out that another area in which they have detected “flagrant” cases of punitive excesses is in sentences for glorifying the invader through messages on social networks, with prison sentences of up to five years. The OHCHR also highlighted this in its October report: “The severity of punishments for non-violent crimes appears in some cases disproportionate to their seriousness. The OHCHR has documented the case of a 60-year-old woman who was accused of justifying armed aggression and the violent overthrow of the State for having shared messages on social networks about the war in Ukraine. She was sentenced to five years in prison.”
Zmina’s report illustrates the arbitrariness of the sentences with two different convictions for the same crime and in the same place: in the village of Boromlia, a person was sentenced to one year and three months in prison for sacrificing two lambs to offer them free to Russian troops. In the same town, another person who sacrificed lambs, prepared food and washed clothes of invading soldiers, was sentenced to a fine of 17,850 hryvnias (460 euros).
Another problem is “the lack of resources” in the judicial system and in the security forces, according to representatives of the Prosecutor’s Office interviewed by Zmina and the KhISR, “which, among other things, represents a reduction in the quality of investigations.” “Investigators, overwhelmed with work, carry out minimal research and do not study the evidence in detail,” they point out. Chernousov recalled that the system is saturated with cases about crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine, so the processes against collaborators should focus on people who have assumed high responsibilities in the occupied territories or on people who have participated militarily against the State. or collaborated in violent actions.
Chernousov ended his speech by admitting that there is a taboo that no one wanted to mention, among the twenty police officers and members of the Prosecutor’s Office interviewed for the study: the evidence of possible physical and psychological abuse against those accused of collaboration. In its report of October 19, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry in Ukraine claimed to be certain of at least three illegal detentions and one that ended in torture.
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