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.

The temporal dynamics of these offenses during 2013-2021 demonstrated a consistent downward trend, which the onset of armed conflict disrupted. By 2017-2018, the numbers had stabilised at approximately 225-234 registered crimes annually, though a minor uptick to 259 cases occurred in 2019. The year 2020 marked a dramatic inflection point, with registered crimes plummeting to 163 cases, likely reflecting the combined impact of pandemic-related restrictions and law enforcement reorientation.

This declining trajectory intensified through 2021 and reached its nadir in 2022, when only 61 registered crimes were documented – a reduction of more than 88% compared to the 2014 peak.

The dramatic collapse in 2022 coincides directly with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, which fundamentally disrupted both criminal networks and law enforcement capacity in affected regions. Despite a temporary reversal in 2023, when 129 cases were recorded, potentially indicating partial recovery of law enforcement functions or displacement of criminal activities to safer territories, the subsequent year witnessed a renewed decline to 79 registered offenses. The most recent available data from 2025 reveal a continuation of this declining trajectory, with 54 crimes of this type documented.

The notification data demonstrate parallel patterns, with the ratio between registered criminal proceedings (total numbers) and criminal proceedings with suspects remaining relatively consistent throughout most years, suggesting stable detection and reporting mechanisms. The most recent available data from 2025 reveal a continuation of this declining trajectory, with 54 crimes of this type documented, though this figure represents only partial-year data.

However, we have a strong presumption that the official police statistics do not present a real picture. There is a strong presumption that any war stimulates prostitution and the illegal market of sex services. In January 2026, Ukrainian journalists published an investigation on the issue of the sex industry on the frontline (Lykhoglyad, L. (2026). From ‘massages’ to intimacy on the battlefield. How the sex services market works in frontline cities. Ukrainska Pravda, January 8, 2026), where one of the most remarkable and symbolic points was “No air raid alarm will stop a massage when it’s time for one”.

This study demonstrated how war changes the geography, economy, and social dynamics of the sex industry, creating new centres of demand and supply for services.

Kramatorsk has become the main epicentre of the market, serving as a regional hub for service providers from different regions of Ukraine. The market is structured around two main formats: so-called ‘massage parlours’ with a base price of 30-40 Euros for services, and classic intimate services for 100-150 Euros. Outcall services to the frontline zone cost from 200 Euros per day plus transport costs. A characteristic feature of the market is the high level of online fraud: according to respondents’ estimates, about 90% of online advertisements for services are fictitious, which indicates the possible involvement of organised criminal groups in this segment of the economy.

According to military personnel, clients’ motivations are multifactorial and not limited to physiological needs. The study identifies three main reasons for using these services: satisfying physiological needs in conditions of prolonged separation from partners, psychological relief after combat stress, and the search for emotional support and the illusion of care. The latter reason seems to be the most important from a socio-psychological perspective, as it points to a lack of psychological support for military personnel and a need for emotional contact, even in the context of commercial relationships. At the same time, the study notes that a significant proportion of military personnel refrain from using such services out of loyalty to their partners.

From a public health perspective, the situation is critical. The lack of medical supervision, combined with the high prevalence of HIV infection among service providers, poses epidemiological risks. Some workers in the industry try to minimise risks by distributing free condoms from charitable organisations, but there is no systematic medical supervision. The legal status of sex work in Ukraine remains in a grey area: formally prohibited by administrative law, it is effectively tolerated in frontline regions, depriving workers of legal protection and the possibility of receiving medical care without the risk of administrative prosecution.

The study demonstrates that the war not only changed the geography of the sex industry but also reveals deeper social problems: insufficient psychological support for the military, the lack of effective legal regulation of sex work, and gaps in the public health system. The economic migration of service providers to frontline areas reflects the rational logic of seeking solvent demand, which is confirmed by the significant increase in military personnel’s incomes compared to the pre-war period.

Comparative analysis of the police statistics prove the trend of decreasing numbers of crimes of running brothels, which are traditionally considered as ‘shadow crimes’ or ‘satellite crimes’ in relation to THB crimes. Therefore, the police statistics should be analysed more than critically, considering the realities and alternative investigations.

The analysis of official police statistics on brothel management and procuring in Ukraine from 2013 to 2025, when contrasted with journalistic investigations and field evidence, reveals a fundamental paradox that illuminates the enduring relationship between law enforcement and the sex industry during wartime. While registered offenses declined by 88% from their 2014 peak to reach historic lows in 2022-2025, empirical evidence from frontline regions demonstrates not the disappearance of the sex industry, but rather its expansion and structural transformation under conflict conditions.

Prostitution remains fundamentally a police-controlled business, rather than a genuinely suppressed criminal phenomenon. The dramatic collapse in official crime registrations coinciding with Russia’s full-scale invasion does not reflect the elimination of sex work – as the Kramatorsk case study vividly demonstrates – but rather signals the reorientation of law enforcement priorities, the collapse of traditional regulatory mechanisms, and potentially the continuation of informal police oversight in new forms. The emergence of Kramatorsk as a major hub for sex services, operating with apparent impunity despite formal legal prohibitions, suggests that the traditional model of police-managed tolerance has adapted to wartime conditions rather than disappeared.

This divergence between official data and documented reality carries profound implications for criminal justice policy, public health protection, and our understanding of state capacity during wartime. The critical public health risks identified in frontline regions – including high HIV prevalence among sex workers operating without medical supervision, widespread fraud in online markets suggesting organized crime involvement, and the psychological vulnerability of military personnel seeking emotional support through commercial intimacy – remain invisible in official statistics and therefore unaddressed by policy interventions.

The case of wartime Ukraine demonstrates that ‘satellite crimes’ associated with human trafficking and sexual exploitation cannot be accurately measured through conventional police statistics when the fundamental relationship between law enforcement and the sex industry remains one of controlled tolerance rather than genuine suppression. Researchers, policymakers, and international monitors must therefore approach official crime data with heightened critical awareness, recognizing that declining statistics may reflect not improved conditions but rather the invisibilisation of persistent problems under the pressures of armed conflict. The continued operation of the sex industry in frontline areas, documented through alternative investigative methods, proves that war disrupts the statistical recording of these phenomena far more than it disrupts the phenomena themselves – a reality that demands both methodological innovation in crime measurement and fundamental policy reconsideration of the legal status and health protection of sex workers in conflict zones.

This statistical volatility cannot be interpreted merely as variations in criminal activity. Rather, the evidence suggests factual sabotage by law enforcement agencies in registering such crimes, particularly during the initial phase of the full-scale invasion in 2022 when institutional capacity was severely compromised and priorities shifted dramatically toward war-related offenses. The subsequent increases in 2024 and 2025, reaching and exceeding pre-war levels, indicate either a genuine surge in crimes against justice or a belated return to more comprehensive registration practices – or potentially both phenomena operating simultaneously.

Perhaps the most alarming trend revealed by the statistical data is the deteriorating ratio between registered crimes against justice (total numbers) and the number of criminal proceedings with suspects. This metric serves as a critical indicator of investigative effectiveness and prosecutorial follow-through. When crimes are registered but suspects are not identified, investigated, or prosecuted, it suggests systemic failures in accountability mechanisms and potentially indicates institutional tolerance for such offences.

The data reveals a troubling pattern: the ratio between registered crimes against justice and notifications of suspicion escalated from 2,34 in 2013 to a peak of 5,61 in 2019, indicating that at the height of dysfunction, nearly six crimes were registered for every suspect identified. This dramatic deterioration suggests a systemic collapse in investigative capacity and prosecutorial will during this period, effectively creating an environment of impunity for crimes against justice.

The subsequent decline to 1,62 in 2025, while appearing positive, requires careful interpretation – it may reflect genuine improvement in accountability mechanisms but could also indicate reduced crime registration, changes in statistical methodology, or prosecutorial selectivity. The 2019 peak coincided with a critical period in Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms, potentially capturing the tension between increased reporting and insufficient institutional capacity to investigate. The current lower ratios demand verification through qualitative analysis to determine whether they represent authentic progress or merely statistical artifacts masking continued systemic deficiencies.

Intentional Non-Execution of the Court Decisions

Non-execution of court decisions represents a chronic pathology of the Ukrainian justice system, consistently flagged by the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights as a fundamental breach of the rule of law. The statistical data on criminal proceedings initiated under Article 382 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (intentional non-execution of court decisions) for the period 2013-2025 reveals not merely the persistence of this problem, but its dramatic transformation in the context of Russia’s full-scale military aggression against Ukraine.

During the period 2013-2020, the volume of registered crimes under Article 382 demonstrated relative stability, fluctuating within a range of 3200 to 4200 cases annually. The peak occurred in 2019, when law enforcement agencies registered 4212 crimes against justice of this type. This relatively consistent pattern suggested an equilibrium state where the problem existed at endemic levels but remained within certain predictable parameters. Following 2019, a gradual decline commenced: 3448 crimes in 2020, followed by 2668 in 2021 – a reduction that might superficially suggest systemic improvement but more likely reflected evolving enforcement priorities and resource constraints.

The year 2022 marked a critical inflection point. The number of registered crimes plummeted to a historic minimum of 1191 – less than one-third of the 2019 level and merely 45% of the 2021 figure. Applying the classical criminological principle that crime within certain boundaries constitutes a normal social phenomenon, this dramatic contraction reveals not improvement but rather the catastrophic impact of Russia’s February 2022 escalation on Ukraine’s justice infrastructure. The precipitous decline demonstrates how profoundly military aggression disrupted judicial and law enforcement systems that had been painstakingly developed through years of coordinated effort by successive Ukrainian presidents, legislators, executive authorities, and both international and domestic experts and civil society organisations.

However, the 2022 nadir must be interpreted through a dualistic analytical framework. On one dimension, the record-low registration of crimes under Article 382 reflects the objective realities and altered priorities of a wartime society, where judicial enforcement mechanisms necessarily yielded to immediate security imperatives. This dramatic reduction signals not an improvement in court decision execution, but rather the effective collapse of accountability mechanisms, as law enforcement resources were diverted to existential threats and territorial defence. The statistics illuminate a justice system operating in crisis mode, where violations that would ordinarily trigger criminal investigation instead occurred in a zone of impunity created by wartime exigencies.

On the second dimension, an examination of the ratio between total numbers of registered criminal proceedings and criminal proceedings with identified suspects reveals an equally troubling trajectory. From 2017 through 2021, Ukraine demonstrated gradual but consistent progress in converting registered crimes into concrete criminal proceedings with concrete suspects. The ratio improved steadily: from merely 38 criminal proceedings with suspects identified among 3283 criminal proceedings in 2017 (1,2%) to 218 criminal proceedings with suspects among 2668 criminal proceedings in 2021 (8,2%). This positive trend suggested that the criminal justice system was functioning more effectively, with investigations increasingly producing actionable results and reasonable suspicions grounded in evidence.

The 2022 rupture reversed this hard-won progress catastrophically. While only 1191 crimes were registered, a mere 34 suspects were identified (2,9%) that represented significant regression from 2021 levels. More alarmingly, the subsequent period reveals an explosive divergence. In 2023, while crime registration modestly increased to 2065 cases, suspect identification surged to 415 (20,1%). The year 2024 witnessed 3537 registered crimes but an extraordinary 1800 identified suspects (50,9%). Preliminary data for 2025 shows this trend accelerating exponentially: 7180 crimes registered alongside 4576 suspects (63,7%).

Interference in judicial activities

Judicial independence constitutes a foundational pillar of democratic governance and human rights protection. In recognition of this principle, Article 376 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine criminalises interference in judicial activities, establishing both primary and aggravated forms of liability.

Despite this robust legislative framework and persistent judicial complaints regarding external pressure, prosecutorial outcomes reveal a striking enforcement deficit. Statistical data from 2019-2025 demonstrates a systematic failure to transform registered crimes into concrete criminal proceedings. In 2019, 168 registered crimes yielded zero identified suspects. This pattern persisted through subsequent years: 143 crimes in 2020 (2 suspects), 122 in 2021 (0 suspects), 64 in 2022 (2 suspects), 102 in 2023 (2 suspects), 98 in 2024 (0 suspects), and 108 in 2025 (0 suspects). Cumulatively, 494 registered crimes over five years (2020-2025) resulted in merely four criminal proceedings with identified suspects – an identification rate of 0,8%.

The current equilibrium – hundreds of registered crimes, virtually no suspects – serves neither judicial independence nor rule of law. It either exposes judges to systematic pressure without remedy or normalises the inappropriate criminalization of procedural conflicts. Resolution requires empirical investigation into complaint origins, prosecutorial decision-making, and case outcomes, alongside doctrinal clarification of Article 376’s proper scope in protecting judicial independence without chilling legitimate advocacy.