Ukraine

Previous reports: 2024 | 2023/24

Principal EBCO concerns

• Immediate release is called for all conscientious objectors currently imprisoned, detained, or convicted solely for their religion or belief.

• Stalling of proposed legislation for alternative non-military service during wartime.

• Objectors face severe persecution, discrimination, torture, and hostile media campaigns, Supreme Court rulings treat conscientious objection as draft evasion, disobedience and a criminal offence, and appeals to Constitutional Court suffer judicial delays.

• Violent "busification" (forcible conscription) practices and military registration enforcement by Territorial Conscription Centers (TCC) and police lead to arbitrary detentions incommunicado, beatings, cruel treatment and deaths, restrictions in access to work, education, and public services.

• Ukrainian refugee males face deportation or return threats.

• Russian occupation involves military recruitment and forced indoctrination measures violating IHL and detentions of Jehovah's Witnesses.

As reported by EBCO's Ukrainian member, the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement:²

Developments

At least 110 religious objectors were jailed by court decisions violating human rights, and thousands are being forcibly held in military units, many suffered arbitrary detention and torture, while legislation to protect the human right to conscientious objection to military service during wartime is still not adopted because of the pressure by the army³.

On 24 November 2025, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine responded to a questionnaire of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection asserting its position that conscientious objection to military service should not be allowed in wartime and that is the ministry’s position in the interdepartmental communications on reforms of legislation.

The Government in May 2025 adopted the Rule of Law Roadmap formally committing to adopt legislation allowing conscientious objection in wartime and alternative service for religious objectors, with commitment to draft and adopt the amendments in the second quarter of 2026. However, during interdepartmental consultations Ministry of Defense insisted that conscientious objection should not be allowed during the war. The State Agency of Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) tasked to draft the law pointed out lack of powers and suggested that Ministry of Economy should draft the relevant amendments. As of the end 2025, the amendments were not drafted. Because of the lack of public discussion (the topic of conscientious objection remains taboo), no public participation in the interdepartmental consultations, and since the suggestions of the Ministry of Defense is usually taken as ultimate necessity by all branches of power, possibility of amending law to allow conscientious objection remains questionable.

On 27 October 2025, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment of a joint chamber of 7 judges upheld a conviction of Jehovah’s Witness Vitalii Kruyshenko stating there is no right to conscientious objection in wartime on the basis of three highly questionable legal fictions (fiction of national interest in compelling all citizens to perform military duty; fiction of possibility of military service without weapons; and fiction of equivalence of a religion or belief incompatible with military service to a criminal intent to evade it)⁴; the Supreme Court also noted that it is inevitable that beliefs of conscientious objectors must change to perform military duty. Two judges dissented pointing out international standards and that principle of rule of law was not observed. Cases of objectors Serhii Nechayuk, sentenced for “draft evasion” to 3 years of prison, and Tymur Chyzhov and Vasyl Volosheniuk, sentenced for 5 years of prison for “disobedience”, were referred to the Grand Chamber (GC); in the last case, the GC refused to consider the case suggesting it sees no reasons to change practice of the joint chamber, with five judges dissenting, and the Nechayuk’s case still pending before the GC. Institute of Peace and Law submitted amicus curiae briefs to GC and panel of judges of the Supreme Court in these cases pointing out legal grounds for requesting an advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights regarding a right to conscientious objection in wartime.

In October 2025, seventh-day Adventist Andrii Skliar who was forcibly mobilised, tortured, and arbitrarily detained in 2024, was charged along with 14 other conscientious objectors with disobedience to an order to train in shooting and take an oath with a weapon and were placed in pretrial detention, awaiting trial on charges that could entail sentences of 5 to 10 years in prison.⁵

Automatic military registration is introduced by the Decrees of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No 1203 of 25.09.2025 and 1632 of 05.12.2025, transferring data from the Unified State Demographic Register and other information systems to the Ministry of Defense to conduct conscription of all men in age from 18 to 60. The Decree No 916 of 30.07.2025 introduces automatic military registration of women with medical and pharmacy education, also provides for automatic military registration of men in age from 25 years with military rank “soldier (sailor) in reserve”.

A control of military registration compliance by employers was intensified with adding to Territorial Conscription Centers (TCCs) in commissions conducting the control representatives of the State Tax Service and the State Labor Service according to Decree No 892 of 16.07.2025.

Legislation was adopted to simplify administrative responsibility procedures, such as fines and administrative warrants and arrests for non-compliance with military registration regulations, by the Law No 4316-IX of 13.03.2025.

From 1 September 2025, all students of higher education institutions are obliged to undergo basic military training and could be expelled for refusal to do so; the basic military training is also required for public service employment.⁶

Conscription provisions and procedures

All men in age 18-60 are required to bear military registration documents which could be checked at any time by TCC, police, border guard, etc. In practice, it means that such men need to install Reserve+ application on smartphone that shows electronic military ID. Functions of the application and governmental degree regulating it are secret. TCC could add a record that a person is wanted, which means a warrant for administrative arrest and forcible transportation to the TCC usually with official reason “update military registration data”; in such case a red warning is indicated also in Reserve+, and in many cases people are allowed to recognize their guilt and pay fine through Reserve+ app to remove indication of warrant, which however could be arbitrarily reissued again any time. Regular practices are violent transportation to TCCs using minibuses and similar vehicles (“busification”), arbitrary detention and cruel treatment. Media reported tens of cases of death in custody of TCCs. The TCCs can’t detain people officially, but usually do it unofficially.

According to Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov, 2 millions Ukrainians are declared wanted by TCCs and 200 000 leaved military units without authorization in 2025. In October 2025, there were reported 4 500 proceedings per month to seize debts by TCC fines for violations of military registration. The Office of Prosecutor General stopped publishing statistics of crimes related to absents without leave (AWoL) and desertions for reasons of national security. When discussed on Suspilne TV, the number 300 000 was said.

Conscientious objectors are not exempted from conscription and military registration but may obtain deferrals on the rare grounds not related to military registration, such as severe health problems. Limited number of clergy are reserved from conscription as essential workers, their churches are obliged to send chaplains to army as prerequisite to deferral, that is used by DESS as instrument of leverage on clergy to force churches to make doctrines compatible with military service.

The status of wanted by TCC is an obstacle to obtain deferrals, that was mitigated only for arms industry by the Law No 4630-IX of 9.10.2025.

Conscientious objection provisions and procedures

Conscientious objectors are continued to be forcibly conscripted, cruelly treated by TCCs and military units, and punished for conscientious objection, as reported by the OHCHR⁷, European Commission⁸ and CoE⁹, part of incidents with cruel treatment and punishment instead of alternative service was reported even by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman of Ukraine), despite the Commissioner’s Secretariat usually denies in consideration of complaints of conscientious objectors referring to preeminence of military duty¹⁰ and wrote to EBCO that the right to conscientious objection could be considered only after restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine; according to the Ombudsman’s annual report for 2025, he received 1 669 appeals from conscientious objectors who were sent to military units¹¹. Jehovah’s Witnesses reported 16 prisoners of conscience¹² during 2025, 5 of them were released on bail or after mitigation of verdict as in the case of Kruyshenko. According to their submission to the Supreme Court quoted in a ruling¹³, there are 1044 criminal proceedings against Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding their conscientious objection, and during the period of martial law 2119 Jehovah’s Witnesses were sent to military units against their will, of whom at least 31 were subjected to ill-treatment. Adventists informed us about 4 known prisoners of conscience, one conditionally released (Zelinsky); one of them, Andrii Skliar, was arbitrarily detained near for year in military unit before official pretrial detention on charge of “disobedience”, and tortured during forcible conscription. Also, hundreds are detained in military units.

There are 110 known cases of detention for conscientious objection by judicial decisions that came into legal force, including verdicts and rulings on pretrial detention; in several cases, courts of appeal reversed verdicts of acquittal and passed prison sentences with disregard to international human rights standards cited in the verdicts.

Complaints of conscientious objectors Vitalii Alekseienko, Serhii Ivanushchenko, and Dmytro Zelinsky on legislation allowing to deny in recognition of conscientious objection in wartime and punish conscientious objectors are still pending in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine¹⁴. The Court requested an amicus curiae brief from the Venice Commission, which adopted it on 18 March 2025; the document “Ukraine – Amicus curiae brief on alternative (non-military) service”¹⁵ says that “under no circumstances may a conscientious objector to military service be obliged to bear or use arms, even in self-defence of the country”, “States have the positive obligation to set up a system of alternative service which must be separated from the military system”, “defence does not depend on the use of military weapons by every citizen, nor on their inclusion in the military command system… conscientious objection and the fulfilment of the duties of solidarity towards one’s co-citizens are not necessarily incompatible”.

Voluntary recruitment

Voluntary recruitment campaigns target youth in age 18-25 and foreigners, promising a significant first-time reward. A law was adopted allowing voluntary service of persons older than 60.

Conscientious objection during and after military service

A law on social protection of military personnel was amended with a removal of a mention of the right to alternative nonmilitary service, emphasizing non-recognition of right to conscientious objection during military service. All proposals of MPs to preserve or modernize the provision were rejected.

Asylum for conscientious objectors

A Russian citizen Ivan Borysov, sentenced to prison in Russia for criticizing the war of aggression and support of Ukraine, living in Dnipro with a Ukrainian wife, faced multiple refusals in consideration of his asylum application. His residence permit was revoked on the grounds that his Russian passport expired, he was taken to a migration detention facility and threatened of being included into a prisoners exchange with Russia. Despite the court refused to allow the State Migration Service to detain and deport Borysov, he remained in detention waiting for appellate review of the judgment.

Ukrainian authorities lobbied for the end of protection of male refugees in Europe forcing them to return and be conscripted, and for prohibition of any Russians who served in the army to enter the EU countries, with no exceptions to conscientious objectors. Despite the European Commission reiterated protection of Ukrainians will long to 2028, in Norway a legislation was proposed to deny temporary collective protection to Ukrainian males aged 18-60, with some exceptions.

The German Federal High Court was criticized for a ruling of 16 January 2025 saying that a conscientious objector could be extradited to Ukraine even though he is threatened with conscription into the war and, if he refuses, years in prison.¹⁶

Militarisation of the education system

Educational institutions are obliged to inform TCCs about women subject to military registration by the Decree No 916 of 30.07.2025 of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. Also, the Decree of Ministry of Education No 177 of 12.02.2025 requires of educational institutions to comply strictly with military registration regulations, not enroll students without military registration documents, and envisions checks of compliance.

The Ministry of Education numerously declared it “fights” use of education for “draft evasion” considering abnormal and subject to scrutiny any enrolment of students in age 25 and more years. In result of administrative measures, such checks and licence suspensions, the number of such students decreased by half, 53 500 in 2025 compared to 113 000 in 2024.¹⁷

1. Military expenditure figures are estimates published by SIPRI (The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) in April 2026.↩︎
2. More info about the organisation at: https://pacifism.org.ua/↩︎
3. https://www.civilni.media/622/↩︎
4. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399720158↩︎
5. https://www.civilni.media/514/↩︎
6. https://mod.gov.ua/news/bzvp-u-zakladah-vishhoyi-osviti-shho-potribno-znati↩︎
7. https://ukraine.ohchr.org/en/reports↩︎
8. https://enlargement.ec.europa.eu/ukraine-report-2025_en↩︎
9. https://rm.coe.int/memorandum-on-human-rights-elements-for-peace-in-ukraine-by-michael-o-/1680b678ec↩︎
10. For example, in 2025 the Secretariat of Ombudsman Lubinets refused to consider complaints of two Quakers, Oleksandr Ivanov (forcibly conscripted and detained in military unit for a month) and Yurii Sheliazhenko in danger of forcible conscription (Lubinets personally signed a final denial on 23 March 2026, four days after the forcible conscription and torture of Sheliazhenko); for details, see https://ebco-beoc.org/press-release/2026-01-23-yurii-sheliazhenko-conscientious-objector-to-military-service-and-human-rights-defender-under-immediate-threat and https://www.pressenza.com/2026/04/yurii-sheliazhenko-the-world-will-be-better-without-armies-and-wars/↩︎
11. https://www.ombudsman.gov.ua/storage/app/media/uploaded-files/1-22042026-0951-angl-shchorichna-dopovid-2025.pdf (the Ombudsman avoid terms “conscientious objection”, “torture”, etc.; page 99 says about complaints of conscientious objectors: “Violations of rights are reported in 1,669 appeals from individuals who, despite their religious convictions, were sent to military units, contrary to Article 35 of the Constitution of Ukraine, which provides grounds for replacing military duty with alternative (non-military) service”; ).↩︎
12. https://www.jw.org/en/news/region/global/jehovahs-witnesses-in-prison/↩︎
13. https://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/134688351↩︎
14. https://www.civilni.media/448/↩︎
15. https://www.venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/default.aspx?pdffile=CDL-AD(2025)006-e↩︎
16. https://en.connection-ev.org/article-4390↩︎
17. https://osvita.ua/consultations/96129/ ;
    https://sud.ua/uk/news/ukraine/343165-u-mon-zayavili-scho-navchannya-ne-mozhe-vikoristovuvatisya-dlya-uniknennya-mobilizatsiyi-universiteti-pochali-pereviryati↩︎