The true scale of the problem is difficult to overestimate. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, as of early 2026 there were 1,401 criminal proceedings concerning torture pending, of which 704 were opened in 2025 alone (Hlavkom, 2026). At the same time, only a small fraction of cases reach trial: over the entire period from 2022 to 2025, suspicion notices were issued to 56–67 persons per year, while the number of indictments sent to court was significantly lower (Yagunov, 2026). These figures, taken on their own, attest to a systemic crisis in the criminal prosecution of torture.

The onset of the full-scale invasion in 2022 caused a sharp statistical drop in registered crimes of this category — to 68 cases — not because torture had diminished, but because a large share of incidents occurred in occupied or frontline territories where any documentation was virtually impossible (Yagunov, 2026). In subsequent years — 2023–2025 — figures recovered to 94–124 cases per year, consistent with the pre-war baseline, yet far below the actual number of incidents.

The true systemic problem lies not only in the acts of torture themselves, but in the algorithmic inefficiency of their prosecution. The ECtHR, in the case of Afanasyev v. Ukraine, had already established that Ukraine not only applies torture but effectively fails to punish it (Hlavkom, 2026). That verdict has not become obsolete — it is confirmed annually by new scandals, fragile convictions, and the impunity of uniformed torturers.

This review covers the most prominent specific cases in three categories: torture in National Police units, torture in the penitentiary system, and torture in Territorial Recruitment and Social Support Centres (TRC/SSC). Each case is analysed according to a uniform scheme: date and circumstances of the event, description of documented acts, response by authorities and society, suspicion notices issued, and the fate of the case in court.

SECTION I. TORTURE IN NATIONAL POLICE UNITS

The Kaharlik Case: Rape and Torture at a Police Station (2020–2026)

Although the underlying events occurred in May 2020, the Kaharlik police officers’ case became a litmus test for the state of police reform precisely during our study period — owing to its judicial resolution in 2023–2026.

Description of events. In May 2020, at the Kaharlik District Police Department of Kyiv Oblast, two officers — an investigator and the head of the criminal police sector — detained a woman suspected of involvement in a crime. Over an extended period they inflicted grievous bodily harm upon her, applied electric current, handcuffed her to a radiator in the corridor, transported her outside the city in the boot of a car, and raped her. In September–October of the same year, male detainees who had been subjected to torture stated that investigators had also transported them outside the city in car boots and tortured them with electric shocks to extract confessions of theft (LB.ua, 2026; NV, 2026).

The public outcry was unprecedented. The case became a symbol of post-Soviet police violence within the ‘reformed’ police service. The Office of the Prosecutor General placed the case under direct supervision. Both officers were dismissed and taken into custody.

On 24 May 2023 the Kaharlik District Court delivered a guilty verdict: both defendants were sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment under a combination of charges — torture (Art. 127), unlawful deprivation of liberty (Art. 146-1), and rape (Art. 152 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) (Hlavkom, 2023). In November 2024, the Kyiv Court of Appeal upheld the sentence (OBOZ.UA, 2024). On 19 February 2026 the Supreme Court of Ukraine definitively confirmed the conviction, drawing a line under 5.5 years of the victim’s judicial struggle for her rights (NV, 2026; LB.ua, 2026). The case became one of the rare examples of torture by police officers being prosecuted to a final, enforceable guilty verdict.

Torture at a Kharkiv Police Station: Sexual Violence to Obtain a Confession

Although this case came to public attention in 2021, its investigative and procedural context spans the study period.

A deputy head of one of Kharkiv’s police divisions detained a man suspected of murder and brought him to the station. For over an hour, officers struck the detainee on the head with a plastic water bottle. The deputy chief then put on rubber gloves and applied sexual violence — squeezing and pulling the victim’s genitals. Unable to endure the torture, the man confessed to killing his acquaintance. The court remanded him in custody, but he secured his release from the pre-trial detention facility and declared his innocence (SBI, 2021).

The SBI issued a suspicion notice to the deputy head of the police division for torture involving sexual violence. The case attracted wide attention owing to the striking resemblance of the ‘interrogation’ methods to Soviet-era militia practices.

Vinnytsia: Torture to the Point of Clinical Death over Suspected Petty Theft (September 2023 – February 2026)

This case is one of the most thoroughly documented examples of police violence in our study period, encompassing all stages — from the crime to the judicial proceedings.

In September 2023, three Vinnytsia police officers were checking information concerning a man’s possible involvement in the theft of a bag containing documents and bank cards. Late at night they brought him to a duty room and commenced what amounted to the ‘beating out of a confession.’ Throughout the night, officers delivered multiple blows with fists and a rubber baton, mostly to the abdomen. The beatings were accompanied by systematic psychological pressure aimed at breaking the person’s will and forcing him to confess. As a result of the torture, the victim sustained multiple severe injuries to internal organs, suffered intra-abdominal haemorrhage, and underwent clinical death — cardiac arrest on the operating table. His spleen was removed (SBI, 2026; TSN, 2026).

Information about the incident only became public in January 2026 — more than two years after the crime itself — when the SBI and the Office of the Prosecutor General released details of the case.

In January 2026, three police officers were served with suspicion notices for torture committed by a group of persons involving a state official, and for the intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm. Two suspects were placed under house arrest; regarding the third, who had already left the police service, the question of issuing a suspicion notice was being resolved. In February 2026 the case was referred to court (OGP, 2026; Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, 2026). A key concern: between the act of torture (September 2023) and the issuing of suspicion notices (January 2026) more than two years elapsed. During this time the victim remained without official victim status in a torture case.

SECTION II. TORTURE IN THE PENITENTIARY SYSTEM

Findings of the Ombudsman’s Office: Special Report 2024

On 2 May 2024 the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights of Ukraine published a Special Report ‘On the State of Affairs Regarding the Prevention in Ukraine of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment in 2023’ (Ombudsman, 2024). The document recorded alarming trends that characterised the penitentiary system during the period of martial law.

As of 31 December 2023, 44,024 persons were held in 148 penal institutions and pre-trial detention facilities, compared with 42,726 in 2022. In parallel, 29 penal institutions located in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts remain non-operational (Ombudsman, 2024).

The report documented numerous acts of violence by staff against convicted persons and persons held in custody: beatings with hands, feet, and rubber batons; compulsion to perform physical exercise to the point of exhaustion; threats of sexual violence. Particular concern was raised by the situation of persons sentenced to life imprisonment, who are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day and spend their one-hour exercise period in a cramped cubicle (Focus, 2026; Ombudsman, 2024).

According to data from the Department for the Execution of Criminal Sentences, in 2024–2025 only isolated criminal proceedings under Part 3 of Article 127 of the Criminal Code were opened against institutional staff — 1 in 2024 and a few in 2025 (Pravo.Ua, 2026). This statistical picture is strikingly understated relative to the actual situation, attesting to systemic latency of violence in penitentiary facilities.

ECtHR Judgment: Chornodubravskyy and Others v. Ukraine (2026)

In 2026 the European Court of Human Rights delivered judgment in the case of Chornodubravskyy and Others v. Ukraine concerning 12 applicants. The Court found a violation of Article 3 of the Convention owing to cell overcrowding, absence of sanitary conditions, lack of access to showers and fresh air in Ukrainian pre-trial detention facilities (Pravo.Ua, 2026). This judgment continues a long series of analogous ECtHR verdicts, including the case of Sukachov v. Ukraine (2020), and confirms the systemic nature of violations in the domestic penitentiary system.

Statistical Overview (2022–2026)

Aggregating available data, as of early 2026 courts had delivered only 20 final convictions in cases of torture by law enforcement officers — across the entire observation period (Hlavkom, 2026). Police officers feature most frequently in such proceedings, accounting for approximately three-quarters of all suspicion notices. Penitentiary staff rank second, accounting for at least 36 cases in 2025 (Hlavkom, 2026). Meanwhile, researchers note that registered data for 2022–2025 are significantly understated, since they cover only incidents that occurred on government-controlled territory where investigation is possible (Yagunov, 2026). The actual number of torture incidents — in police stations, prisons, and especially in TRC facilities — remains unknown.

SECTION III. TORTURE IN TERRITORIAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIAL SUPPORT CENTRES (TRC/SSC)

Systemic Violence as a ‘New Front’: The General Picture, 2023–2026

With the onset of large-scale mobilisation in 2023, a new wave of scandals connected to violence inside TRC/SSC facilities came to public attention. The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights recorded that in 2022–2023 more than 500 applications were received from citizens regarding rights violations during mobilisation. In 2024 this number increased sixfold — to 3,312 complaints — and in 2025 it reached 6,127 applications (UNIAN, 2026). In total, over 2022–2025 the Ombudsman received nearly 12,000 complaints about TRC actions.

Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets described mobilisation in 2025 as the ‘most acute issue’ his office had faced, emphasising that ‘Ukrainian citizens must feel protected within TRC/SSC premises, not the opposite’ (RBK-Ukraine, 2026). The SBI characterised combating torture in TRCs as one of its ‘priority areas,’ noting: ‘Such actions are inadmissible, especially under martial law, and undermine public trust in state institutions’ (SBI, 2026).

Ternopil: Video Recording of the Beating of Conscripts at a TRC (October 2023 – May 2026)

On 7–8 October 2023 footage of the beating of conscripts — recorded the previous day — circulated online. Criminal proceedings were opened the following day. A verdict was delivered in October 2026 (Zaxid.net, 2026; Radio Svoboda, 2023).

On the evening of 6 October 2023, a grenadier soldier from the TRC security section, together with other service personnel, stopped a local resident in central Ternopil for a documents check. The man was brought to the TRC. In footage covertly recorded and subsequently published on social media, two servicemen are seen brutally beating two men lying on beds; pleas not to be beaten are audible. One victim sustained medium-severity bodily injuries; the other sustained minor injuries (SBI, 2024; NV, 2024).

The video provoked wide public reaction. Ombudsman Lubinets personally announced an inspection, writing on Facebook: ‘Ternopil. I saw footage from the media and social networks showing the beating of conscripts. This must not happen!’ (Radio Svoboda, 2023). The Ternopil Specialised Prosecution in the Defence Sphere of the Western Region opened criminal proceedings. On 13 October 2023 a court imposed night-time house arrest on two suspects — the section commander and the grenadier soldier.

In early 2024 the accused returned to work at the TRC pending the conclusion of the trial. The case was substantially delayed, and several witnesses had left the country. On 20 May 2026 the Ternopil City-District Court delivered its verdict: both defendants pleaded guilty and received 1-year suspended sentences and a fine of UAH 850. In determining the sentence the court took into account the defendants’ combat record, the presence of children, their sincere remorse, and documented donations of UAH 50,000 each to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (Zaxid.net, 2026). This verdict became a symbol of impunity in cases of violence at TRCs: the minimal punishment for a documented and publicly circulated brutal beating proved so disproportionate to the social harm caused that the case triggered a fresh debate on judicial independence in cases against members of the security forces.

Verkhovyna TRC (Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast): Systemic Torture and Extortion (November 2025 – May 2026)

Following verification of complaints from citizens and members of parliament regarding beatings, torture, and extortion of money at one of the Prykarpattia TRCs, the SBI launched an investigation. It established that a lieutenant-colonel, deputy head of the Verkhovyna District TRC/SSC, had systematically humiliated and beaten conscripts. One victim — a service member — publicly spoke out about the violence. The investigation established that at least four subordinates of the lieutenant-colonel were involved in the beatings (Suspilne Ivano-Frankivsk, 2026). On 21 November 2025 the lieutenant-colonel was detained and remanded in custody. The SBI noted that after media publications and official appeals, an increasing number of victims began contacting law enforcement. In January 2026 another subordinate of the lieutenant-colonel — a serviceman from the security platoon involved in the beatings — was detained. The actions of the commander and three subordinates were classified as torture committed by a state official. The court remanded all persons charged in custody without the right to bail. On 18 May 2026 the SBI referred the indictment to court (Podrobnosti, 2026; Leopolis News, 2026). On 29 May 2026 a preparatory hearing took place at which the second victim appeared for the first time; the court granted an application for panel adjudication (Pravda.If.Ua, 2026).

Ternopil (Second Episode): Torture at a TRC with Fluoroscopy and Organ Removal (2025–2026)

The SBI conducted an inspection in response to citizens’ complaints of beatings, torture, and extortion of money at one of the district TRCs. At least two criminal episodes were established. In the first, the victim was beaten for refusing to undergo a fluoroscopic examination: initially in the corridor of a hospital, then on TRC premises. In the second, servicemen forcibly detained a man; the commander personally delivered blows; tear gas was deployed; the victim lay on a concrete floor. As a result of the injuries sustained, he underwent complex surgery involving the removal of one of his organs (Leopolis News, 2026; Focus, 2026). Suspects were served with suspicion notices in November 2025 and January 2026. Following media publications, the number of victims approaching law enforcement increased.

Kharkiv TRC: Torture and Shooting, Extortion of Money (April 2026)

The SBI issued suspicion notices to a group of servicemen from one of Kharkiv’s district TRCs, as well as to servicemen from other units who had acted in concert. Among those charged was a major of the TRC who held a commanding position and organised the actions of the accomplices. According to the investigation, the group extorted money from individuals and, in cases of refusal, resorted to violence and threats. Shooting episodes were also recorded in the case. Suspicion notices were issued for torture committed by prior conspiracy by a group of persons (SBI, 2026; Hlavkom, 2026). The pre-trial investigation was ongoing, with prosecutorial supervision exercised by the Kharkiv Specialised Prosecution in the Defence Sphere of the Eastern Region.

Mykolaiv: TRC Officer Suspected of Beatings (January 2026)

On 8 January 2026 the SBI issued a suspicion notice to an officer of one of Mykolaiv’s district TRCs for beating and humiliating conscripts (Hlavkom, 2026). The SBI reiterated that ‘combating torture is one of the Bureau’s priority areas’ and that such actions ‘undermine public trust in state institutions’ (SBI, 2026).

Kyiv Oblast: TRC Officer for Beating and Humiliation (February 2026)

On 3 February 2026 the SBI detained and served a suspicion notice on the head of the civil-military cooperation support group of one of the Kyiv Oblast district TRCs for beating and systematic humiliation of conscripts (SBI, 2026). The case demonstrates that violence at TRCs is not a local anomaly but a widespread practice across different regions of the country.

Rivne TRC: Beating with a Bat and Corruption (May 2025)

In May 2025 the SBI issued additional suspicion notices to the former head of the Rivne District TRC. Initially criminal proceedings had been opened against him for beating one of his subordinates with a bat. During a search, narcotics were discovered. A further charge concerned assisting persons in evading mobilisation: ‘The official created conditions enabling certain conscripts to avoid mobilisation’ (ArmyInform, 2025). This case illustrates the typical ‘compounded corruption’ of TRCs: violence combined with corrupt schemes to evade service.

Dnipro: Beating at TRC, Video on Telegram (August 2025)

On 8 August 2025 a Telegram channel published footage apparently showing the beating of a former serviceman by Dnipro TRC employees. The Dnipro Specialised Prosecution in the Defence Sphere immediately registered criminal proceedings (Donbas Patriot, 2025). The case is instructive: footage in public messaging applications became the primary ‘trigger’ for opening proceedings.

SECTION IV. STATISTICAL DIMENSIONS AND SYSTEMIC CONCLUSIONS

Quantitative Picture, 2022–2025

According to official data of the Office of the Prosecutor General as of early 2026 (Hlavkom, 2026), the total number of criminal proceedings regarding torture currently pending is 1,401, of which 704 were opened during 2025. The number of persons served with suspicion notices was 56 in 2022 and 67 in 2025; 41 indictments were referred to court in 2025. The total number of final guilty verdicts over the entire study period is 20. These indicators demonstrate an extremely low rate of criminal prosecution effectiveness: of more than 1,400 proceedings opened, only 20 resulted in a final conviction — a ‘verdict-to-proceeding’ conversion rate of less than 1.5%.

Structural Causes of Impunity

Analysis of the documented cases reveals several systemic factors that perpetuate the impunity of torture in Ukraine even in conditions of prolonged human rights advocacy and declared reforms.

First, protracted investigations. In the Vinnytsia case, more than two years elapsed between the act (September 2023) and the suspicion notice (January 2026). In the Ternopil TRC case, between the video (October 2023) and the verdict (May 2026) — almost three years. Procedural delay exhausts victims and increases the risk of evidence loss.

Second, disproportionate penalties. The verdict in the Ternopil TRC case (a 1-year suspended sentence and a UAH 850 fine for a documented and filmed brutal beating) plainly demonstrates that courts do not always adequately assess the social danger of torture committed by state officials.

Third, fear and latency. The Ombudsman’s Office, the SBI, and independent researchers unanimously indicate that the actual number of torture incidents is many times higher than the registered figure. Victims fear repeated persecution, lack confidence in the system’s effectiveness, and under conditions of martial law may find themselves in a state of dependency on the very structures that abused them (Yagunov, 2026).

Fourth, institutional loyalty. The return of the accused in the Ternopil TRC case to their workplaces before the verdict became enforceable, justification on circumstantial grounds, and similar practices — all attest to the fact that certain institutions continue to protect ‘their own’ and resist external oversight.

Fifth, the systemic character of violence at TRCs. The increase in complaints from 500 in 2022–2023 to 6,127 in 2025 (UNIAN, 2026) signifies not only a greater willingness of people to complain, but also a genuine spread of violent practices in the context of large-scale mobilisation.

CONCLUSIONS

This documentary review of the most prominent cases from 2022–2026 paints a grim picture of systemic violence and corporate impunity within Ukraine’s key security institutions. The police, the penitentiary service, and the TRCs — three separate agencies with no organisational connection — demonstrate identical patterns of behaviour: the application of physical pain to obtain a desired result (confessions, compliance, money); minimisation of the risk of accountability; and loyalty of leadership towards subordinate torturers.

The reform of the SBI that is under way and the increased activity of the defence-sphere prosecution are positive signals. However, without overcoming systemic impunity — through strengthening judicial independence, legislative reinforcement of the inevitability of punishment for torture, and genuine functional parliamentary and public oversight — any reforms will remain cosmetic.

Ukraine has assumed obligations before the Council of Europe, the ECtHR, and, potentially, towards its future EU membership. Fulfilment of those obligations requires not merely a statistical increase in the number of suspicion notices, but the genuine punishment of torturers — irrespective of their rank and institutional affiliation.

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Active digitalisation, the advancement of AI and recent geopolitical dynamics in Eastern Europe and the Middle East have intensified the issue of crime-related hybrid threats and the appropriate legal responses [1; 9; 12].

EU states are increasingly facing forms of criminality that are taking on hybrid patterns: from the smuggling of conscripts and weapons triggered by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, to interference in domestic political and economic processes through disinformation campaigns and illicit financial flows. The escalation of hybrid threats serves as a catalyst for legal transformation within the EU, given the public demand for security (Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Seventh Progress Report on the implementation of the EU Security Union Strategy and Annex, COM (2024)). However, the imperative of security, which requires flexibility and rapid adaptation, often conflicts with the law, traditionally focused on stability, consistency and proceduralism.

In response to the growing threats, states continually seek a balance between repressive and preventive countermeasures commensurate with the danger dimension. Nevertheless, there is a noticeable lag in social and legal control over organised crime, particularly considering its trends of transnationalisation. Governments are constrained by regulatory, linguistic, and jurisdictional barriers, the temporality of law, and diplomatic procedures. Criminals, as a rule, do not face such obstacles and actively exploit legal gaps. Under these circumstances, states tend to use security instruments that deviate from the classical approaches to counteraction based on principles of the rule of law more often.

The prioritisation of security facilitates the emergence of the “rule of security”, which can be defined as a legal paradigm in which security becomes the primary normative axis, displacing or marginalising traditional rule of law principles, particularly in response to non-traditional (hybrid) criminal threats. The “rule of security” gives rise to the ambivalence of security: as a legal category, security can both guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens and restrict them under the pretext of ensuring public order, safeguarding national security or protecting state interests. The issue reflects a broader trend of securitisation in law, which, without critical reflection, risks undermining the foundation of legal legitimacy of crime counteraction.

The phenomenon of securitisation has received considerable attention in political and social sciences [3; 13; 14; 15], including reasonable criticism [2; 11], however, its legal implications in the field of crime prevention remain insufficiently explored.

The concept of the “rule of security” has not yet been systematically doctrinally elaborated in legal studies, although practices in the criminal justice sphere aligned with it are becoming increasingly common.

In particular, numerous contemporary regulatory changes are driven by the implementation of advanced technical security measures. Modern artificial intelligence systems, capable of analysing vast amounts of data, enable the prediction of crime probability in specific regions or based on particular characteristics. Consequently, the paradigm of crime control is shifting: law enforcement is increasingly taking on the nature of predictive control, which in turn raises concerns about a potential erosion of the presumption of innocence.

Moreover, international and regional standards, such as the UNTOC and the ECHR, coexist with national regulatory systems that may differ significantly in their strategies for balancing security and fundamental rights. In some jurisdictions, the boundaries between law, legal exceptions and arbitrariness are becoming increasingly blurred in the context of tackling serious crime.

Furthermore, there is a growing asymmetry in adherence to the rule of law and the effectiveness of security measures across different legal regimes, indicating the transition of emergent regimes to a state of regularity by the institutionalisation of emergency powers. The national margin of appreciation permitted under Article 15 of the ECHR (derogation in time of emergency) should be carefully monitored and framed to avoid abuse of the “rule of security”.

Among others, three areas (though not exclusively) should be highlighted, which illustrate the tension between the need to ensure security and the need to uphold the rule of law.

Firstly, given the digital transformation of organised crime [6; 7] and associated hybrid threats (the use of the dark web for trafficking in drugs, weapons and human organs, the use of crypto-platforms to evade economic sanctions, etc.), a shift in the battlefield towards the cyber space is observed. An increase in security pressure in the cyber domain is anticipated, posing risks to confidentiality, privacy and the protection of personal data.

Secondly, in the geopolitical dimension, there is a growing use of organised crime by certain states to achieve foreign and domestic policy objectives (North Korea, Iran, Russia) or for broader ideological objectives such as international terrorism.  State-organised crime [5] creates a peculiar conflict of interest or paradox, where the very institutions tasked with implementing international standards to combat organised crime are themselves part of the problem. Some studies point to a link between authoritarian processes and the growing risk of the abuse of international legal assistance institutions to persecute political opponents [10]. In effect, this constitutes a non-violent undermining of the rule of law from within.

Thirdly, legal measures to combat organised crime in conflict and post-conflict environments are manifestations of crisis management. In conflict-affected jurisdictions, emergency regimes such as martial law are often introduced, significantly restricting constitutional rights and expanding the discretion of security forces. Legislation to combat crime is adopted ‘in the heat of the moment’ or retrospectively without proper legal scrutiny. In post-conflict contexts, organised crime is closely intertwined with political structures, corruption networks and the shadow economy, rendering them even more fragile. Instead of effective reconstruction and the expected rule of law, what occurs is the ‘criminalisation of peace’ [4]. Weakened institutions and high levels of corruption create a security vacuum. In response, risks of the ‘securitisation of peace’ are mounting.

Combating serious and organised crime has transcended the traditional scope of criminal justice, becoming a key issue for safeguarding democratic and legal values. In this regard, it is necessary to reevaluate the extent to which contemporary legal mechanisms for responding to organised crime comply with the requirements of the rule of law, to examine the challenges that the “rule of security” poses to democratic institutions, and to consider what the legal ecosystem of security should look like in response to crime-related hybrid threats.

These developments reflect the growing need for a new legal architecture capable of functioning in conditions of non-linear change and “unstable normality”.  They also address the need of a model of adaptive, hybrid threat-resilient legal system that relies on institutional flexibility and transparency, maintaining its democratic nature even under the pressure of exceptional circumstances.

References:

Arkan, Z. (2025). European security and hybrid threats: A narrative in the making. Springer International Publishing.

Balzacq, T. (2005). The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and Context. European Journal of International Relations, 11, 2, 171-201.

Buzan, B., & Wæver, O. (2003). Regions and powers: The structure of international security. Cambridge University Press.

Cockayne, J. (2013). Chasing shadows: Strategic responses to organised crime in conflict-affected situations (Oslo Forum Papers No. 2). Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue & United Nations University. https://www.hdcentre.org/publications/chasing-shadows/

Decoeur, H. (2018). The phenomenon of state organized crime. In Confronting the shadow state: An international law perspective on state organized crime (online ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198823933.003.0002

Di Nicola, A. (2022). Towards digital organized crime and digital sociology of organized crime. Trends in Organized Crime. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-022-09457-y

Europol. (2024). Internet organised crime threat assessment (IOCTA) 2024. Publications Office of the European Union.

Europol. (2025). European Union serious and organised crime threat assessment – The changing DNA of serious and organised crime. Publications Office of the European Union.

Kaldor, M. (2012). New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era (3rd ed.). Polity Press.

Meacham, S. (2022). Weaponizing the police: Interpol as a tool of authoritarianism. Harvard International Review. https://hir.harvard.edu/weaponizing-the-police-authoritarian-abuse-of-interpol/

McDonald, M. (2008). Securitization and the Construction of Security. European Journal of International Relations, 14, 4, 563-587.

Racoveanu, C. (2024). Artificial intelligence – A double-edged sword. Organized crime’s AI vs law enforcement’s AI. Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, 18(1), 507–517. https://doi.org/10.2478/picbe-2024-0044

Sperling, J. & Webber, M. (2018). The European Union: Security Governance and Collective Securitization. West European Politics. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2018.1510193

Taureck, R. (2006). Securitization theory and securitization studies. European Journal of International Relations, 9(1), 53–61.

Wæver, O. (2007). Securitization and desecuritization. International Security, 3, 66–98.

Tetiana Melnychuk is an Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Procedure, National University “Odesa Law Academy” (Ukraine), holding a PhD in Law. Her academic and research interests focus on criminal procedural law. She is currently a Visiting Researcher at the University of Osnabrück (Germany), where she pursues comparative legal research in the field of criminal justice.

That said, the bill’s authors proved flexible: if a citizen genuinely wants to hear a foreign voice on the line, they can personally notify their operator of this unorthodox wish. In other words, silence from the outside world becomes the default, and the desire to hear it becomes an administrative act of personal courage. What was perfectly ordinary just yesterday—receiving a call from relatives abroad — will tomorrow become a privilege reserved for those who took the trouble to submit a request.

It should also be noted that the rule will not apply to numbers from the Union State — meaning Belarus remains accessible. The rest of the world does not. The geography of trust, as we can see, is clearly defined.

Now for the most interesting part.

The official justification for the law is the fight against telephone scammers who call from abroad and swindle money from the elderly. The problem is certainly real and acute. But this raises a delicate question: what will happen to the domestic fraud sector, which, according to Russian law enforcement officials themselves, is thriving just as vigorously and, unlike its foreign competitors, calls exclusively from numbers with the +7 code?

The logic of the law, if you think about it, runs something like this: we cannot allow a grandmother from Ryazan to fall victim to some scoundrel from Kyiv or Warsaw — that would be an affront to national dignity. But if that same pensioner hands over her savings to a “bank security officer” from Nizhny Novgorod — that is purely an internal matter, a private arrangement between citizens of the same state.

The state, in this way, carefully protects domestic producers from unfair foreign competition. Protectionism in its purest form — only instead of tariffs, a legislative blockade against outside challengers.

It is also worth considering the aesthetics of this decision.

The Iron Curtain of the Soviet era closed the borders to people — it prevented them from leaving. The new, digital and telephonic curtain operates more subtly: it simply prevents anyone from calling in. Bodies may remain wherever they are, but the information space is neatly contracted to the confines of the Union State, plus whatever one declares to one’s operator.

It is telling that the measures specifically target landline phones and people over 60—that is, those most dependent on their home telephone as their primary window to the world. Young people have long communicated via messaging apps — those have not been shut down yet (though, judging by the pace, their turn will come). But the grandmother with a rotary-dial phone in the kitchen — she is now “protected.” In the sense of “protection” that is difficult to distinguish from isolation.

All that remains is to wish the bill’s authors consistency.

If foreign scammers are dangerous — shut down the internet too. If foreign news distorts reality — it has largely been shut down already. If foreign words pollute the language — there are lawmakers with precisely such bills in hand. If foreign air carries unwanted ideas…

We will stop there. The State Duma has no shortage of inspiration as it is.

There is a particular kind of academic ‘stagnation’: when a phenomenon is so vast and so obvious that the scientific apparatus grinds to a halt, not knowing where to begin. The self-isolation of modern Russia is precisely such a case. It has long since gone beyond the concept of a ‘carceral state’ — and even this concept, which until recently seemed a sufficiently broad analytical category, increasingly resembles a pair of clothes that are too tight, worn over something much larger and clumsier.

However, before resorting to mid-level theories, it is worth turning to the classics. Yevgeny Schwartz, in his play ‘To Kill the Dragon’ (1944), depicted a mechanism that is instantly recognisable in modern Russia: The Dragon does not merely set the rules—it sets reality. Windows that look outward are dangerous not because an enemy might enter through them, but because through them the inhabitants might see something the Dragon did not foresee. Therefore — close them. Methodically, systematically, citing regulations.

The digital dimension of this narrative demands separate attention. Over the two decades of the Putin regime, Russia has cultivated the illusion of openness in the digital space — as a kind of safety valve that relieves social pressure. This is the essence of what might be called ‘anesthesia of consumption’: citizens are allowed to read whatever they want — and so they take to the streets less often. When the real pressure became too great, the safety valve was shut off.

On February 20, 2026, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring telecommunications operators to suspend services at the request of the FSB — without any judicial oversight. Ten days later, the law took effect. Starting March 6, 2026, Moscow residents reported widespread mobile network outages. On March 14, the ‘whitelist’ system was activated — a set of resources accessible during the blackout. The list included: government portals, state-controlled platforms (VK, Yandex), food delivery services, and banking apps. The following were deliberately excluded from the list: independent media, foreign news resources, and any tools for verifying reality.

To paraphrase Schwartz: how many open windows do we have? All of them are open. We don’t know any limits. Well then, we’ll close the open windows. The technical implementation of the dragon’s monologue turned out to be simple and elegant: a person can order a pizza, pay a bill, call a taxi — but cannot find out why the connection is down, what’s happening in the city, or consult with anyone outside official channels. The state does not deprive a person of pizza delivery. It deprives a person of the ability to know that pizza delivery and the FSB are now part of the same infrastructure.

The phenomenology of voluntary isolation is not without its cultural artifacts. In this context, an event that a strict researcher would not even notice takes on particular analytical significance — but one that strikingly and accurately illustrates the mechanism of normalization. On the show “Field of Miracles” (“Channel One”), the children’s vocal ensemble “Komilfo” (Volgograd) performed a song about the benefits of disconnecting from the internet. The young performers — with all the immediacy of a child’s voice — conveyed to the audience that in the absence of blogs and channels, they are forced to play badminton, that this is a “terrible dream,” and at the same time: “We don’t want to, we don’t want to, you won’t catch us in the net, we won’t sit, we won’t sit on your internet”.

This song is, perhaps, the most accurate cultural document of the era. It fully reproduces the Dragon’s logic: truth reformatted as desire. The children aren’t forced — they want the windows closed. They aren’t deprived of the internet — they themselves refuse the network. Normalization is complete when the victim internalizes the restrictions to such an extent that they begin to consider them their own choice. This is the true surgery of control—when the stitched wound leaves no scars.

At the same time, the propaganda pedagogy revealed a characteristic ambivalence: the “terrible dream” in the song’s lyrics is a metaphor specifically for disconnecting from the internet, not for its presence. That is, the children sing about how bad it is without the internet — and at the same time assert that they don’t want to be on it. This contradiction, of course, is not acknowledged by the authors themselves. But it is symptomatic: second-generation propaganda is no longer capable of sustaining even its own internal logic.

The self-isolation of Russian society, thus, is not merely a political fact — it is a performance. The regime enacts the closing of windows, society enacts the enjoyment of darkness, and children sing songs about how the sun was superfluous anyway. If Shvartsovsky’s Dragon were to read contemporary analytical reports, he could only shake his head: why intimidate when you can teach people to love the cage? Why ban windows if you can convince people that they were never open to begin with?

The answer to this question leaves us with a bleak but analytically honest conclusion: the prison state as a concept is already too anthropocentric. It presupposes a prisoner who knows he is a prisoner. Contemporary Russia has gone further — toward a society that perceives bars as an architectural feature and sings children’s songs in their defense. To call this a “prison state” is to underestimate the scale of the phenomenon. To call it a “dystopia” is still to appeal to the reader’s imagination. Perhaps the most accurate name is simply: The Dragon Lives. And the windows are closing.

This article develops the conceptual model of “two-phase authoritarianism,” in which coercion gives way to temptation in the first phase, so that by the second — once society has already been stripped of its means of resistance — the transition to totalitarianism becomes technically and politically feasible. The events of March 2026 in Moscow — the activation of “whitelists” of permitted internet resources during a deliberate shutdown of mobile communications — serve as a marker of that transition.

An important theoretical instrument actively deployed by authoritarian governments to legitimize control over the internet is the concept of “digital sovereignty.” Originally developed in democratic contexts as a safeguard against the monopolistic practices of transnational platforms, it has been repurposed by Russia, China, and kindred regimes to justify the state’s right to shut down, filter, and reshape the information environment. “Sovereign internet,” in this reading, is not a right of citizens to secure communications — it is the state’s right to determine which communications are possible at all.

PHASE ONE: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT OF MANAGED CONSUMPTION

The first stage of the two-phase model spans roughly the first two decades of Vladimir Putin’s rule. It is defined by a specific social contract that can be stated simply: the state does not interfere with consumption — society does not interfere with governance.

The mechanism of this contract is well documented. Oil revenues in the 2000s and early 2010s allowed Russia’s middle class to access Western standards of consumption: shopping malls, foreign travel, smartphones, and streaming services. Simultaneously, independent media, judicial independence, and electoral competition were systematically dismantled — but in a manner calibrated so that the majority of the population did not feel the direct material consequences.

Scholars have termed this phenomenon “welfare authoritarianism” or “pleasure authoritarianism“: a regime that sustains its legitimacy not through ideological mobilization but by ensuring a rising level of consumption. Citizens trade participation in public life for a guarantee of private comfort, and consider the exchange acceptable so long as that comfort persists.

The digital dimension of this contract was fundamental. Russia in the first decade of the century had a comparatively open internet. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — all were freely accessible. Blocked sites were marginal in number and in public consciousness. This “internet freedom” functioned as a partial substitute for the real-world freedom that had been quietly removed: people could read what they wished and, therefore, took to the streets less often.

The regime deliberately cultivated the illusion of openness in the digital space — as a pressure valve for social discontent. When real-world pressure grew too acute, the valve was closed. This observation recurs across numerous analyses of the evolution of the Russian internet, and it is accurate.

THE BREAK: FEBRUARY 2022 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shattered this contract on several fronts simultaneously. First, international sanctions and the voluntary withdrawal of Western corporations made consumerist comforts materially unattainable: IKEA, McDonald’s, Apple Pay, Netflix, and Instagram disappeared. Second, mass anti-war protests — the largest in more than a decade — demonstrated that a segment of society was prepared to break the contract even under direct police pressure. Third, and most consequential for our model, the state concluded that as long as a person retains access to uncontrolled information, they remain potentially disloyal.

The initial response was surgical: blocking Instagram and Facebook, throttling Twitter/X, tightening regulations on VPN services. But these measures remained half-hearted — they left people with the practical sense that censorship could technically be circumvented. The systemic shift came later.

On February 20, 2026, Putin signed a law requiring telecommunications operators to suspend services upon instruction from the Federal Security Service. The stated purpose was counterterrorism. The practical function was to give the FSB direct administrative authority to shut down communications in any region of the country, without judicial oversight of any kind. The law took effect ten days after signature.

Beginning March 6, 2026, Moscow residents reported pervasive mobile network outages. According to Forbes, operators received orders to restrict network operations in specific areas of the city. On March 14, 2026, a “whitelist” system was activated — a defined list of resources accessible during the shutdown.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE WHITELIST

The composition of the list is analytically revealing. It includes: government services (Gosuslugi, official agency portals); state-controlled information platforms (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex); e-commerce services (Ozon, Wildberries, Samokat, Burger King, SDEK, car-sharing); banking applications (Alfa-Bank, VTB, the Mir payment system); and state media (RIA Novosti, Zvezda, Match TV, VGTRK).

Conspicuously absent from the list: any independent or foreign news source; social networks not under state control; messaging applications; and any tool capable of allowing users to verify the actual state of affairs outside official channels.

The architecture of the list follows a coherent and unambiguous logic. This is not a list of resources essential for survival — it is notably lacking, for instance, in medical services or emergency infrastructure. It is a list of controlled existence: a person may order food, pay a bill, call a taxi — but cannot learn why communications are down, what is occurring in the city, or consult with anyone outside official channels.

What we observe, therefore, is not the destruction of comfort but its restructuring: comfort is preserved precisely and only to the degree that it does not threaten control. The state does not deprive a person of pizza delivery — it deprives a person of the ability to know that pizza delivery and the FSB now share the same infrastructure.

PHASE TWO: COMFORT AS INSTRUMENT, NOT COMPENSATION

This is what qualitatively distinguishes the second phase from the first. In the first phase, comfort functioned as compensation — a substitute for freedom. In the second, it becomes an instrument of control: a permitted set of actions within an enclosed space. The difference between a gilded cage and a bare one ceases to matter; what matters is that neither can be exited.

The law of February 20, 2026, is precisely such an act of normalization: it converts ad hoc disconnections — practiced before, but extrajudicially — into a legal procedure. From this point forward, any shutdown of communications is not an act of arbitrary power but the enforcement of law. Legal form does not constrain; it legitimizes.

CONCLUSIONS

The situation described above permits the following theoretical and practical conclusions.

First, twenty-first-century authoritarianism does not merely suppress freedom — it replaces freedom with a simulacrum of well-being. This substitution is not a temporary tactic but a structural element that allows the regime to minimize the costs of overt repression during the first phase.

Second, the transition from the first phase to the second is not an abrupt rupture — it is prepared by the gradual technical, legal, and institutional construction of a control infrastructure. Those who failed to register the first phase find themselves unprepared for the second.

Third, the whitelist of internet resources is not merely a technical solution — it is the concentrated expression of a new social ontology: only what is permitted is real. This represents “information sovereignty” in its most radical and unmediated form.

Fourth, the legal normalization of communications shutdowns is the key step that transforms the extraordinary into the routine. Further comparative analysis of legislative trajectories in states exhibiting similar dynamics is necessary if adequate mechanisms of protection and resistance are to be developed in time.

Pre-war (2013-2021), Ukraine demonstrated consistent crime reduction, reaching a historic low of 321443 registered crimes in 2021, with approximately 50-54% suspect identification rates. The full-scale invasion immediately disrupted this trajectory. By 2025, registered crimes surged to 608191 – an 89% increase from 2021 – while suspect identification plummeted to 27,3%, creating an unprecedented justice gap with over 442000 criminal proceedings lacking identified suspects.

The war fundamentally transformed crime patterns. Criminality became significantly more rural, with rural crime increasing from 20% (2013-2021) to 32,3% (2025) of total crimes. The urban-to-rural crime ratio declined from 4:1 to barely 2:1, reflecting occupation-related crimes, abandoned property theft, and frontline zone criminality.

Crime categories showed varied impacts: property crimes initially decreased but fraud increased dramatically (from 23847 in 2021 to 82609 in 2023). Domestic violence crimes surged (from 4800 in 2021 to 8900 in 2024). War crimes exploded from 253 in 2021 to 62128 in 2022. Intentional homicides with firearms peaked at 909 in 2023 – 25 times the 2021 baseline. Paradoxically, despite weapon proliferation, some firearms crimes showed complex patterns rather than simple increases.

Human trafficking statistics revealed troubling gaps: despite 6,5 million refugees creating unprecedented vulnerability, registered cases remained low (105 in 2024), suggesting severe underreporting and possible law enforcement complicity.

The study demonstrates that while Ukraine maintained statistical transparency during existential crisis, institutional effectiveness collapsed under wartime pressures, creating dangerous impunity that threatens post-war reconstruction and rule of law.

The isolation facility will be located near the 71st kilometre of the M-11 motorway, between the villages of Shapkino and Ozhogino, on a 42.7-hectare plot of land. The complex of buildings with a total area of almost 140,000 square metres will be divided into local, restricted and utility and storage areas. The restricted access zone will have six buildings for men, one for women, as well as separate buildings for individuals with so-called ‘negative tendencies’ and those suffering from tuberculosis. The new detention centre is planned to hold 3,020 men, 400 women (including 24 women with children), 20 minors, 100 persons of ‘negative orientation,’ 68 persons with tuberculosis, up to 12 persons sentenced to life imprisonment, 100 defendants in transit, and up to 280 convicts assigned to maintenance work. The tender for design and survey work was held in March 2023, with the initial design cost estimated at 191 million roubles, but the contract was awarded for 91 million; at the same time, the contractor paid more than 8.5 million roubles in penalties for delays in completion.

The decision to build a new large-scale detention centre should be viewed in the context of general trends in the Russian Federation’s prison system and its connection to the aggressive war against Ukraine. According to World Prison Brief data, Russia’s prison population has shown a steady downward trend over the past two decades: from 1,060,404 people in 2000 (729 per 100,000 population) to 465,896 people in 2022 (322 per 100,000 population).

As of 1 January 2023, the total number of prisoners was 433,006, with an official capacity of 714,253 places in the prison system, i.e. the occupancy rate was only 67%.

Russia had 872 penitentiary institutions, of which 204 were pre-trial detention centres (SIZO), 642 were correctional colonies, 8 were prisons, and 18 were educational colonies for minors.

However, the decline in Russia’s prison population, which Kremlin propaganda tried to present as the result of the ‘humanisation’ of criminal justice, is in fact an artificial trend that has nothing to do with the penitentiary policy of a democratic state. The large-scale ‘emptying’ of Russian prisons was a direct consequence of the recruitment of prisoners to participate in the war against Ukraine. According to a joint investigation by Mediazona and BBC Russian Service (June 2024), the private military company Wagner recruited at least 48,366 people directly from places of detention.

According to estimates by the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, the total number of convicted prisoners recruited could have been between 140,000 and 180,000.

The Washington Post, citing government statistics and human rights activists, reported that up to 100,000 prisoners had been released and sent to fight.

According to the British Ministry of Defence (March 2023), about half of the prisoners recruited by Wagner were killed or wounded in Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted in February 2025 that Russia had virtually exhausted its prison population in 2022–2023 and could no longer generate significant forces from among prisoners.

Thus, the decline in Russia’s prison population is not the result of progressive reforms, but the bloody consequence of using prisoners as ‘cannon fodder’ in the war against Ukraine. Thousands of Russian convicts have been killed on the front lines, particularly during the assaults on Bakhmut, where Wagner convict recruits were used as shock troops in wave attacks against Ukrainian positions. Under the Wagner model, convicts who survived six months of service on the front lines were granted pardons. Many of these released individuals are dangerous criminals, and their return to society is already causing serious concern about an increase in recidivism.

On the other hand, despite the deaths of thousands of prisoners on the front lines, the Russian regime clearly needs new places for its growing prison population.

The construction of a giant 4,000-capacity detention centre in the Moscow region is compelling evidence that the Kremlin leadership is forecasting a significant increase in the number of people held in custody. This forecast is confirmed by several key factors.

First, according to a statement by the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service (March 2025), the number of foreign citizens in the Russian prison system exceeded 30,000, with the majority of them being citizens of CIS countries. Back in December 2023, Russian Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuychenko called this situation ‘a very big problem.’

Second, the return of tens of thousands of pardoned convicts who participated in hostilities to civilian life will inevitably generate a new wave of crime and, accordingly, new prisoners.

Third, the intensification of political repression in Russia — criminal prosecution for ‘discrediting’ the armed forces, for anti-war statements, for ‘fakes’ about the army — creates a constant stream of new political prisoners.

The construction of a new pre-trial detention centre in Solnechnogorsk is also an indicator of the further incarceration of Russian society — a process in which prison logic is increasingly penetrating all spheres of public life. Russia historically remains one of the countries with the highest incarceration rates in the world. Even after the ‘decline’ in the prison population, the rate of 300 people per 100,000 population (World Prison Brief data for early 2023) is many times higher than the median rate for Western European countries (73 per 100,000). According to World Prison Brief data, at the time of the last measurement, Russia’s prison system had an official capacity of 714,253 places, with an actual occupancy rate of only 67%. Nevertheless, instead of using the existing capacity, the state is initiating the construction of a new huge detention centre. This indicates that the authorities expect a large-scale increase in the number of inmates, i.e. persons who are in custody pending trial, which is an indicator of the strengthening of the repressive apparatus.

It should be noted that on 1 January 2023, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia stopped publishing official statistics on the prison population. The publication of official police crime statistics was also banned. This lack of transparency is a characteristic feature of an authoritarian regime that is trying to hide the real scale of repression and the consequences of using prisoners as cannon fodder.

The independent media outlet Mediazona reported that the Federal Penitentiary Service announced a 17.5% reduction in the prison population since the beginning of 2023, which led to the preparation of a draft order on the possible liquidation of several penitentiary institutions. However, as evidenced by the construction of a new pre-trial detention centre, this trend is temporary, and the regime is preparing for a new wave of mass arrests.

In general, the decision to build one of the largest pre-trial detention centres in Russia against the backdrop of the ongoing war against Ukraine and the mass deaths of prisoners on the front lines is yet another eloquent testimony to the prison-like nature of the Russian state. The regime, which, on the one hand, sends tens of thousands of convicts to their deaths in a foreign country and, on the other, builds new giant detention centres for future victims of repression, demonstrates the profound essence of the Russian imperial project, in which prison has always remained one of the key instruments of social control. The incarceration of Russian society is not diminishing — it is only changing forms, moving from mass imprisonment to mass murder of prisoners of war, and then back to mass imprisonment.

The data reveal several significant patterns across the 2013-2025 period. While crimes committed with firearms indeed increased substantially in 2022, reaching 1929 incidents – a more than six-fold increase from the 2021 figure of 300 cases – this surge must be contextualised within Ukraine’s broader contemporary history.

Most notably, the 2014 figure of 2523 firearm-related crimes remains the highest recorded level in the dataset, exceeding the 2022 figure by approximately 31%. This 2014 peak coincided with the Maidan Revolution, the illegal annexation of Crimea, and the initial phase of Russian military aggression in Eastern Ukraine, suggesting that periods of intense political upheaval and initial conflict onset may generate more pronounced spikes in firearm criminality than subsequent phases of sustained warfare.

The period from 2015 to 2021 demonstrates a consistent downward trajectory, with firearm-related crimes declining from 1526 in 2015 to the aforementioned historical minimum of 300 in 2021. This trend persisted despite the ongoing armed conflict in Donbas throughout this period, indicating that sustained conflict itself does not necessarily correlate with elevated firearm crime rates in government-controlled territories. The 2015 figure of 1526 crimes is particularly noteworthy as it occurred during active hostilities yet remained substantially lower than both the 2014 peak and the 2022-2023 figures, suggesting that the initial shock of conflict disruption may be more criminogenic than its continuation.

The 2022-2023 period shows elevated but plateauing figures (1929 and 1867 respectively), followed by a sharp decline in 2024 (832) and relative stabilisation in 2025 (821).

A particularly troubling dimension concerns the relationship between criminal proceedings (total numbers) and criminal proceedings with suspects. Throughout the entire period, notifications consistently lag behind reported crimes, but this gap becomes especially pronounced during peak crime years.

In 2014, while 2523 crimes were recorded, only 833 notifications were filed – a clearance rate of approximately 33%. Similarly, in 2022, the 1929 reported crimes resulted in only 517 notifications, yielding an even lower rate of roughly 27%.

This declining ratio between crimes and suspects raises serious questions about law enforcement agency (LEA) effectiveness during periods of crisis. Several hypotheses merit consideration: First, the wartime redeployment of police resources to military and security functions may diminish investigative capacity for ordinary criminal matters. Second, territorial displacement and population movement may complicate witness cooperation and evidence collection. Third, the saturation of the criminal justice system with conflict-related cases may create processing bottlenecks. Fourth, and most concerning from a rule-of-law perspective, the data may reflect decreased accountability during periods when institutional controls are weakened.

The 2021 data present an interesting counterpoint: 300 crimes with 251 notifications represents an 84% notification rate – the highest in the dataset. This suggests that in stable conditions with lower caseloads, Ukrainian law enforcement demonstrates significantly greater effectiveness in investigating firearm-related crimes. The dramatic erosion of this capacity in 2022-2023, when it was arguably most needed, represents a critical challenge for maintaining the rule of law during armed conflict.

The escalation of firearm-related intentional homicides in the context of armed conflict presents a stark illustration of how warfare fundamentally disrupts criminal justice systems and public safety. Police statistics reveal a dramatic transformation in the incidence of intentional homicides committed with firearms, particularly during periods of military confrontation. After reaching a historic low of 36 registered criminal proceedings in 2021, the number surged to 247 cases in 2022, coinciding with the onset of full-scale hostilities. This seven-fold increase marked only the beginning of a more severe crisis, as 2023 witnessed an unprecedented spike to 909 registered proceedings – representing a twenty-five-fold increase compared to the pre-war baseline and the highest level recorded throughout the entire observation period.

The 2023 peak demands particular scholarly attention, as it exceeds even the initial shock of 2014, when 320 cases were registered following the outbreak of armed conflict in eastern regions. While the 2014 spike reflected localised warfare’s immediate impact on violent crime patterns, the 2023 figures suggest a more comprehensive destabilisation of social order and law enforcement capacity across broader territories. The subsequent decline to 295 proceedings in 2024 and 187 in 2025, while substantial, nevertheless maintains firearm homicide rates at levels five times higher than the 2021 baseline, indicating that wartime conditions have fundamentally restructured the criminal violence landscape rather than producing merely temporary disturbances.

Equally significant is the widening gap between registered criminal proceedings and criminal proceedings with suspects. In 2023, only 173 of the 909 proceedings resulted in suspect identification – a clearance rate of merely 19%, compared to 94% in 2021. This deterioration in investigative effectiveness reflects the profound challenges confronting law enforcement agencies operating under wartime conditions, including resource diversion to military objectives, territorial displacement of both victims and perpetrators, destruction of forensic infrastructure, and the general chaos that impedes witness cooperation and evidence collection. The persistence of low clearance rates in subsequent years (52% in 2024 and 64% in 2025) suggests that investigative capacity remains compromised even as overall crime numbers decline, raising concerns about long-term impunity for violent offenses and the erosion of rule of law foundations.

The dynamics of intentional grievous bodily harm committed with firearms reveal two distinct peaks over the observed period. While the 2022 surge (18 criminal proceedings, all with suspects) can be directly attributed to the full-scale Russian military invasion, the 2014 spike presents a more complex pattern. Despite the absence of full-scale aggression, that year recorded 25 registered crimes – the highest figure in the entire dataset – though notifications remained relatively low at 8. This discrepancy between 2014’s elevated crime registration and lower notification rates, compared to 2022’s parity between both indicators, suggests fundamentally different underlying dynamics. The 2014 spike likely reflects the initial phase of armed conflict in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea, while the 2018-2021 period shows sustained low levels (1-5 cases annually). The post-2022 stabilisation at 14-16 cases indicates a new baseline shaped by ongoing military conflict, with notification rates now closely tracking registered crimes – a pattern absent in the 2014 crisis.

The Figure below demonstrates the number of aggravated robberies committed with the use of firearms and the number of suspects in corresponding criminal proceedings from 2013 to 2025.

On the one hand, we can observe a significant increase in aggravated robberies committed with firearms compared to 2021, when the indicator reached its lowest point at 17 registered cases. On the other hand, police statistics for 2013-2017 demonstrate substantially higher numbers of aggravated robberies – even when Ukrainian society was not as deeply saturated with firearms as in 2022.

The 2014 peak of 411 cases coincides with the outbreak of military actions in Eastern Ukraine and the initial destabilisation of state institutions following the Maidan Revolution. The subsequent decline through 2021 suggests gradual improvement in both law enforcement capacity and social order despite ongoing hostilities in Donbas. Paradoxically, the full-scale invasion in February 2022, which dramatically increased firearm availability through military mobilisation and territorial defense forces, did not produce a return to pre-2018 crime levels. The relatively modest increase to 32 cases in 2022, followed by further decline to 11 cases in 2024, contradicts expectations that widespread weapon proliferation would necessarily correlate with violent property crime.

This inverse relationship between firearm saturation and armed aggravated robbery rates warrants further investigation into whether wartime social cohesion, enhanced informal social control mechanisms, or changes in criminal opportunity structures may be mediating factors in crime suppression during the full-scale invasion period.

The Figure below presents data on crimes committed with explosives and notifications in corresponding criminal proceedings from 2013 to 2025.

The data reveal two concerning trends.

First, after a decline from 2014 (112 crimes) to 2021 (20 crimes), explosive-related crimes have increased substantially: 63 in 2023, 86 in 2024, and 98 in 2025. Second, despite this rising crime rate, the proportion of cases with suspects has decreased dramatically. While notifications roughly corresponded to crime numbers in earlier years (e.g., 55 of 65 in 2013), recent years show a widening gap: only 14 notifications for 63 crimes in 2023, 18 for 86 in 2024, and 32 for 98 in 2025. This divergence suggests significant challenges in investigative capacity, indicating that the clearance rate for explosive-related crimes has fallen to approximately one-third of cases, raising serious concerns about law enforcement effectiveness in addressing this category of criminal activity.

The statistical trajectory of firearms-related crime in Ukraine between 2013 and 2025 reveals a pattern fundamentally shaped by two periods of acute conflict: the initial phase following the Maidan Revolution and Russian annexation of Crimea (2014-2015), and the full-scale invasion beginning in 2022. However, the official figures – showing 2523 registered firearms crimes in 2014, declining to 300 by 2021, then resurging to 1929 in 2022 and 1867 in 2023 – represent only the visible surface of a far more complex and troubling reality.

The inherent limitations of police statistics during wartime and post-conflict periods cannot be overstated. When state institutions are under existential threat, when territories remain contested or temporarily occupied, and when law enforcement resources are redirected toward immediate survival imperatives, criminal registration systems inevitably suffer degradation. The stark spike in intentional homicides with firearms in 2023 (909 cases – the highest figure in the entire observation period) suggests that even as overall firearms crime statistics began to stabilise, the lethality and severity of incidents continued to escalate. Yet these recorded cases likely represent merely a fraction of actual incidents, particularly in conflict zones where bodies may remain unrecovered, crimes unreported, and perpetrators unidentified.

The proliferation of military-grade weaponry throughout Ukrainian society constitutes an unprecedented security challenge. Unlike the civilian firearms that characterised crime patterns in peacetime, contemporary Ukrainian society is saturated with automatic weapons, explosives, and military equipment distributed to territorial defense units, police, and irregular formations. The tragic incident in Cherkasy region on January 27, 2026, where a murder suspect killed four police officers and wounded another during an arrest attempt, exemplifies the lethal potential of this arsenal when weaponry remains in circulation after demobilisation or falls into criminal hands. This case also demonstrates how former or active combatants, when pursued by law enforcement, may employ military tactics and superior firepower against police forces trained primarily for civilian policing rather than armed confrontation with military-trained adversaries.

Organised crime groups have proven remarkably adaptive in exploiting the chaos of wartime conditions. The availability of military and police uniforms, combined with genuine uncertainty about the legitimacy of various armed formations operating in Ukraine’s complex security landscape, creates opportunities for criminal enterprises to commit offenses under the guise of state authority. The blurring of lines between legitimate security actors and criminals wearing appropriated insignia represents a fundamental challenge to the monopoly on legitimate violence that defines functional statehood. When criminals can plausibly impersonate soldiers or police officers, public trust in security institutions erodes, victimisation becomes more difficult to report, and the psychological distance between military service and organised crime narrows dangerously.

Yet perhaps the most concerning dimension of Ukraine’s firearms saturation extends beyond immediate criminal justice challenges into the realm of long-term social pathology. The reintegration of hundreds of thousands of demobilised combatants – many bearing psychological trauma, habituated to violence, and possessing both weapons training and often access to weaponry itself – represents a generational challenge. As an example, the mentioned above murder of four police officers was comitted by an ex-militaryman. Post-traumatic stress disorder, moral injury, and the difficulty of transitioning from the intense purpose and camaraderie of combat to the often hollow meaninglessness of post-war civilian existence create fertile conditions for violence, substance abuse, domestic abuse, and suicide. While the majority of veterans will successfully reintegrate, research from comparable conflicts suggests that a significant minority will engage in criminal activity, domestic violence, or self-destructive behavior.

The convergence of these factors – statistical underreporting masking true crime levels, widespread availability of military weaponry, organised crime exploitation of institutional weakness, and a large population of potentially vulnerable veterans – suggests that Ukraine faces not merely a temporary spike in firearms violence but a structural transformation in its security environment. The 2024-2025 figures, showing some decline from 2023 peaks, may reflect either genuine improvement or simply reduced state capacity to document crimes during intensified conflict.