However, every absolute encounters the reality of its implementation, and it is precisely in the sphere of implementation that its principal weakness is revealed. The Ukrainian state during the war has demonstrated this weakness with the utmost clarity. Notwithstanding Article 15 of the Convention, which expressly excludes derogation from Article 3 of the Convention even in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation, the state in fact derogates from the absolute prohibition of torture precisely when the very existence of the state within its borders is at stake. This occurs not through a formal derogation, but through a silent, yet entirely deliberate, toleration of practices which by their nature fall within the scope of Article 3.

We must acknowledge this, and we must speak about it. Silence regarding this phenomenon is a precondition for its further covert legitimisation in conditions of crisis, and not only in Ukraine, but also in other European countries whose legal systems have been built over the past half-century on the principles of the legal space of the Council of Europe. It is for this reason that the subject of this article is neither a denial of the absolute prohibition of torture nor a search for justifications for the state, but an honest identification of a phenomenon which we propose to call, provisionally, the “torture quasi-compromise”.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The Ukrainian scenario has demonstrated that during a war, which is a reality that cannot be denied, the question is placed on the agenda of the extent to which the state can survive without compulsory mobilisation. The problem is that compulsory mobilisation in Ukrainian conditions has proved to be inextricably linked to the use of ill-treatment and, in a significant proportion of cases, torture. This may sound harsh and may provoke, and certainly will provoke, criticism. But we are speaking of realities, not of a normative ideal.

When the state deliberately derogates from the absolute prohibition of torture, and this derogation is in fact not concealed at the national level, the manifestation of such derogation becomes a phenomenon which in Ukrainian society has acquired the name “busification” (busyfikatsiia). This word, which did not exist in the Ukrainian language just a few years ago, is today instantly recognised by every inhabitant of the country and denotes an entirely specific set of practices: the sudden apprehension of a man on the street, in a public place, at his workplace, in his own home or in his yard by officers of a Territorial Centre of Recruitment and Social Support (TCR), his forcible placement into a vehicle, and his transportation to the TCR or directly to a training centre or military unit.

It is here that we identify the torture quasi-compromise. Its essence lies in the fact that the state turns a blind eye to mass unlawful apprehensions, which by their nature constitute manifestly unlawful deprivation of liberty and which, as a rule, are accompanied by ill-treatment. This ill-treatment takes place both at the moment of apprehension and subsequently. It occurs in public places and on the streets, as well as directly in the apartments and yards of citizens, when TCR officers, who, as the state itself asserts, have no authority to stop, detain or deprive persons of their liberty, nonetheless do so in an undisguised manner. Accordingly, not only Article 3 and Article 5 of the Convention come under attack, but also Article 8, since the right to respect for private and family life and the inviolability of the home are in these situations not regarded as existing at all.

As a result, an atmosphere of total tolerance of ill-treatment is created. Moreover, this tolerance extends both to the moment of apprehension and to the subsequent stages. The phenomenon of busification consists in the fact that even where the apprehension itself takes place without obvious signs of physical violence, it is, as a rule, only the first link in a chain. Next come persons who cannot be mobilised on health grounds, but who are nevertheless sent to the front. It is precisely here that the nexus lies between mass unlawful apprehensions (de facto arrests, since they may be called whatever one likes, but their essence does not change), the forgery of mobilisation documents, and the dispatch to the front of persons who are not subject to conscription on medical grounds.

In at least half of the cases, and possibly more, this path is accompanied by ill-treatment or torture, specifically during apprehension, during transportation to the recruitment centre, or directly on the premises of the TCR. What is at issue is not isolated excesses on the part of individual perpetrators, but a mass, recurrent, systemic practice which at the state level receives no adequate criminal-law or disciplinary response.

THE FIRST THESIS: THE REALITIES OF WAR AGAINST THE ABSOLUTE OF ARTICLE 3 OF THE CONVENTION

The first point on which we insist is the following: however much we may exalt the absolute prohibition of torture, however often we may repeat that even in time of war torture and other forms of ill-treatment are outside the law, realities do their work. A state waging a war for survival finds a way to circumvent the absolute without formally denying it.

An important historical clarification is required here. Such practices are not new. Every war, as history testifies, has been accompanied by compulsory mass mobilisation, unlawful deprivation of liberty, de facto falsification of mobilisation documents, and so on. However, between what occurred during the First and Second World Wars and what contemporary Ukraine demonstrates there lies a chasm. This chasm was created by the establishment of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the corresponding body of Council of Europe law upon which member states build their national legal systems. This applies all the more to the European Union, within the framework of which a unique legal system of its own for the protection of fundamental rights has been created.

It is precisely the emergence of the phenomenon of busification that distinguishes today’s situation from what took place during past European and world wars. The problem is not that mass compulsory mobilisation as such is a historical novelty, but that such a phenomenon exists and reproduces itself within the legal system of the Council of Europe, of which Ukraine has been a member since 1995, and after three decades of development of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, in which the absolute character of Article 3 has been repeatedly confirmed, including in Ireland v. the United Kingdom, Selmouni v. France [GC] and Gäfgen v. Germany [GC].

In other words, the Ukrainian case is the first instance in which a member state of the Council of Europe, while under the full jurisdiction of the European Court and under the monitoring of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, wages a full-scale war for its existence and at the same time demonstrates that the absolute of Article 3 of the Convention proves, in practical terms, to be absolutely vulnerable. This is not an argument against the absolute. It is an argument in favour of the proposition that the absolute requires institutional safeguards, and not merely declarations.

THE SECOND THESIS: WHY THE WEST SEES ARTICLE 5 BUT DOES NOT SEE ARTICLE 3

The second thesis concerns the perception of Ukrainian realities outside Ukraine. The scale and nature of compulsory mobilisation in Ukraine, the reverse side of which frequently becomes ill-treatment, are undoubtedly noticed and analysed in other Council of Europe states and in the European Union. However, for the most part these practices are viewed through the prism of unlawful deprivation of liberty, unlawful apprehensions and other violations of the right to liberty – that is, predominantly in the categories of Article 5 of the Convention.

As a consequence, what in Ukraine has acquired the features of a mass practice of ill-treatment during or after unlawful apprehension is perceived in the West merely as a mass practice of unlawful deprivation of liberty. The violent, degrading and potentially torturous component of this phenomenon remains on the periphery of analysis. Thus, a problem which requires an independent qualification under Article 3 of the Convention is in fact reduced to a question of compliance with Article 5 of the Convention.

What the population of a country at war perceives as something understandable and commonplace, where words such as “TCR” or “busification” evoke a typical and characteristic reaction that is understood without explanation, is perceived in the West, even taking into account the mass scale of the phenomenon, merely as unlawful deprivation of liberty. That is, at most as a problem under Article 5 of the Convention, but by no means as a problem under Article 3 of the Convention, still less in its mass dimension.

THIS SHIFT OF OPTICS HAS AT LEAST THREE CAUSES.

First, the statistical and documentary base concerning ill-treatment during mobilisation is fragmentary: the victims are in military units, have no access to a lawyer, do not have their bodily injuries recorded, and criminal proceedings under the article on “torture” are either not opened or have no prospect. Second, the Western observer is inclined to apply to Ukraine a presumption of good faith on the part of a state defending itself against aggression, and therefore to interpret excesses as individual violations rather than as a systemic practice. Third, the very category of “deprivation of liberty” is cognitively more convenient: it does not require a threshold of severity of suffering, and it does not pose the uncomfortable question of whether a state that is the victim of aggression is at the same time a state that permits torture.

The consequence of this shift is that the phenomenon of busification remains outside proper legal qualification. Yet the case law of the European Court is unequivocal: any recourse to physical force against a person under the control of state agents which was not made strictly necessary by that person’s own conduct diminishes human dignity and is in principle a violation of Article 3 (Bouyid v. Belgium [GC]). There is no basis whatsoever for considering that this standard does not apply to TCR officers who physically restrain a person, place him in a vehicle, strike him or use special means, or hold him on premises without access to water, food, medical assistance and contact with relatives. Nor is there any basis for considering that the dispatch to the front, on the basis of forged documents, of a person who is unfit for service on health grounds does not raise a separate issue under Article 3 of the Convention, and, in the event of death or serious injury, also under Article 2 of the Convention.

Thus, the second principal aspect on which we insist is that the legal qualification of busification must be transferred from the sphere of Article 5 of the Convention to the sphere of Article 3 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 5 of the Convention, and that the mass scale and recurrence of this practice must be regarded as indicators of a systemic problem rather than as an aggregate of isolated incidents.

THE THIRD THESIS: A PROFESSIONAL ARMY AS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST TORTURE AND CORRUPTION

The third thesis is, in our view, the most important from the standpoint of political conclusions. The Ukrainian case has demonstrated how closely interlinked are the issues of creating a professional army, preventing corruption and preventing torture. These three problems are usually considered separately: reform of the armed forces is discussed in the categories of defence policy, corruption in the categories of economics and governance, torture in the categories of human rights. The Ukrainian experience shows that this is one problem with three faces.

In a system of coordinates in which the political elites display a manifest unwillingness to halt corruption schemes and to cut off corruption flows, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the phenomenon of busification, this cannot but lead to the accumulation of acute tension in society between the political elites and the rest of the population. Mobilisation that is carried out through coercion, violence and the forgery of documents, and which at the same time allows some to buy their way out while forcing others to fight contrary to their state of health, destroys the very idea of solidarity on which the defence of the state must rest. Torture during mobilisation and corruption surrounding mobilisation are not two separate phenomena, but two sides of one mechanism: where there is the possibility of unlawfully detaining, there arises the possibility of unlawfully releasing in exchange for a reward.

It is precisely for this reason that the creation of a professional army with properly remunerated military personnel and corresponding obligations voluntarily assumed by soldiers and officers was, from the very outset, the safeguard against torture which Ukraine could and should have adopted in the past. A professional army, a properly trained reserve and a transparent system of incentives substantially reduce the state’s dependence on chaotic compulsory mobilisation, although during a full-scale war they are not always capable of entirely eliminating the need for conscription. Such a set of measures substantially narrows the space for mass unlawful deprivation of liberty and, together with it, for the ill-treatment that accompanies compulsory mobilisation.

This is the principal message that must be proposed and disseminated among Western governments. As the Ukrainian case shows, in the event of war, even within a country that forms part of the legal system of the Council of Europe, in the absence of proper military training of the population and of appropriate incentives – including material and financial ones – for people to take up arms in defence of their country, the reverse side of the absence of such a policy for organising the armed forces will inevitably be mass compulsory mobilisation with the corresponding mass apprehensions and mass instances of ill-treatment. This pattern is not unique to Ukraine. It is structural, and any European state which today is discussing the reintroduction of conscription or preparing for a potential conflict must look at the Ukrainian experience not as an exotic curiosity, but as a warning.

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, we propose three interrelated theses which form the basis of this article.

First, the absolute prohibition of torture, notwithstanding Article 15 of the Convention, has in practical terms proved to be absolutely vulnerable for a state waging a war for survival. Ukraine, being a member of the Council of Europe and under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, has in fact derogated from the absolute of Article 3 through the toleration of the phenomenon of busification. This must be acknowledged and must be spoken about, since silence is the first step towards the covert legitimisation of torture in conditions of crisis in other European states.

Second, the Western perception of busification as a problem exclusively under Article 5 of the Convention is inadequate. Mass unlawful apprehensions accompanied by physical violence, detention in improper conditions, the forgery of mobilisation documents and the dispatch to the front of persons unfit on health grounds must be qualified under Article 3, and their systemic character must be regarded as a structural problem rather than as an aggregate of individual excesses.

Third, the Ukrainian case demonstrates the inextricable link between a professional army, the prevention of corruption and the prevention of torture. The creation of professional armed forces on the basis of incentives rather than coercion is not only a question of defence capability, but also the principal institutional safeguard against the torture compromise. It is precisely this conclusion that must become the central message for the governments of European states which today are rethinking their own models of manning their armed forces in the light of the new security realities.

The torture quasi-compromise is not inevitable. It is the consequence of specific political decisions and, more importantly, of specific political inaction. Recognition of this fact is a necessary condition for the absolute prohibition of torture to remain an absolute not only in the text of the Convention, but also in the practice of the states that have sworn allegiance to that Convention.

It examines the gap between the prohibition’s doctrinal absoluteness and the fragility of its practical enforcement. Drawing on Gäfgen v. Germany, Jalloh v. Germany and Sklyarenko v. Ukraine, as well as contemporary manifestations of instrumental justifications for coercion, I argue that the genuine safeguard of Article 3 lies not only in the formal text of the rule, but above all in a sustained institutional and societal culture of intolerance towards torture and ill-treatment. I hope that this publication will contribute to the continuing professional and academic debate on how an absolute legal norm can remain genuinely absolute in practice.

THE INTERNET AS THE PUBLIC SQUARE OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

The starting point for any modern privacy analysis is no longer the printing press but the smartphone. The Court has repeatedly observed that the internet has become one of the principal means by which individuals exercise their right to freedom of expression, offering essential tools for participation in public debate and an unprecedented platform for ordinary people, not only journalists or politicians, to reach an audience. C.T., the author of the Facebook post at the heart of this case, was not a journalist, a blogger, or a public figure of any kind. She was, in the Court’s own words, a private individual with no expertise in the digital services field, who used her personal account to describe an encounter with the local police in the language of frustration rather than reportage. That she could do so, and that her post could reach tens of thousands of potential viewers within a Facebook group devoted to local affairs, is itself the story of the last two decades: the disappearance of any meaningful barrier between a private grievance and a public audience.

That disappearance cuts both ways, and the Court is candid about it. On one hand, the internet enhances the public’s access to information and its capacity to hold power to account, including the power exercised by police officers in their daily dealings with citizens. On the other hand, the risk of harm posed by online content is, in the Court’s assessment, genuinely higher than that posed by traditional media, because unlawful speech can spread worldwide in seconds and remain persistently retrievable long after it has ceased to serve any informational purpose. A single Facebook post accompanied by a photograph and a name is no longer a private complaint aired to a handful of neighbours; it is a document that can be shared, screenshotted, and resurfaced indefinitely. Any legal framework built for the age of the local newspaper has to be re-engineered for a medium in which the author, the publisher, and the commentariat are frequently the same undifferentiated crowd of private users.

THREE TIERS OF PROTECTION

It is against this backdrop that the Court’s case-law has settled into a recognisable, if not always precisely drawn, hierarchy of three categories of person, each attracting a different intensity of protection under Article 8 and a correspondingly different scope for permissible criticism under Article 10.

Private individuals sit at the top of the protective scale. A person unknown to the public may claim particular protection of the right to private life, and interference with that right, whether through the publication of a photograph, the disclosure of a name, or an accusation of wrongdoing, requires a correspondingly weighty justification. Nothing in this judgment disturbs that baseline; if anything, it is reaffirmed obliquely, because much of the Court’s reasoning about C.T. herself proceeds on the assumption that, as an ordinary private citizen posting about her own encounter with the authorities, her conduct was to be judged generously rather than held to the standard expected of a professional publisher.

Public figures occupy the opposite end of the spectrum. Politicians and others who have, through their own acts or position, entered the public arena and knowingly exposed themselves to scrutiny must display a correspondingly greater degree of tolerance for criticism, and the margin for restricting speech about them under Article 10 § 2 narrows accordingly. This is settled doctrine, and the Court has applied it consistently for decades in cases concerning elected officials, senior civil servants who have sought the public eye, and others whose position depends on public confidence secured through public engagement.

Between these two poles sits the category that this judgment does most to clarify: public servants acting in an official capacity, including police officers, and particularly officers at the lower end of the institutional hierarchy who have never sought public attention for themselves. The Romanian courts had treated the applicants, both ordinary local police officers, as public figures in the full sense, reasoning that this status alone justified the dismissal of their claim. The Strasbourg Court declined to go that far. It held expressly that ordinary police officers cannot be considered public figures in the same sense as politicians or other persons who have deliberately entered the public arena, so long as they have merely acted in their official capacity without seeking public attention. Nothing in the case file suggested that the two officers had sought publicity, either before or after the Facebook post; they were simply doing their jobs, and doing them in a public street, when a citizen decided to record and broadcast the encounter.

Yet the Court did not, for that reason, restore to the applicants the full protection enjoyed by an ordinary private citizen. It agreed with the domestic courts on a narrower but decisive point: precisely because the applicants were public servants acting in their official capacity, and because their profession depends on public trust and directly implicates the proper functioning of the State, they were subject to wider limits of acceptable criticism than ordinary individuals, even though they were not public figures. A certain degree of immoderation in the response to their conduct, the Court noted, falls within those limits, particularly where the criticism is a reaction to what is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as unjustified or unlawful behaviour by the officers themselves. The use of force by State agents, and allegations of police misconduct more generally, are treated by the Court as matters of significant public interest almost by definition, regardless of the rank of the officer involved or the modesty of the incident that gave rise to the complaint.

This produces a genuinely intermediate category, distinct in both directions. Low-ranking police officers are not stripped of privacy protection the way a senator or a minister effectively is; the Court was careful to note that circumstances can exist in which an officer’s individual interest in protecting his or her private life prevails, for instance where publication of a recognisable image is likely to cause specific adverse consequences in that officer’s private or family life, quite apart from any question of misconduct. But neither do they enjoy the presumption of anonymity and insulation from public comment that an ordinary bystander would. Their uniform, their public function, and the public interest inherent in how coercive state power is exercised on the street combine to lower, without eliminating, the threshold of protection.

THE INTERNET-SPECIFIC BALANCING EXERCISE

Having placed the applicants in this intermediate category, the Court applied its now-standard set of criteria: the contribution of the post to a debate of general interest; the degree of notoriety of the persons affected and their prior conduct; the circumstances in which the photograph was taken; and the content, form and consequences of the publication. But because the dispute arose entirely online and generated a wave of third-party comments, the Court also drew on criteria developed specifically for internet cases, most notably in Sanchez v. France: the status of the original poster, that person’s own responsibility for comments left by others, and the practical possibility of holding those other commentators liable directly.

Here the distinctions among private individuals, public figures and public servants interact with a second, equally important distinction, this time between the original author of online content and the anonymous or pseudonymous crowd that reacts to it. C.T. was not the administrator of the Facebook group, had no established capacity to moderate or delete the comments of others, and had expressly disassociated herself from the more offensive remarks posted beneath her own text. The Court considered that holding a private individual civilly liable for the defamatory excesses of strangers reacting to her post would risk a chilling effect on ordinary citizens’ willingness to raise matters of public concern online, and could push people acting in good faith toward self-censorship. At the same time, the officers themselves had not attempted to pursue the individual authors of the abusive comments directly, even though those authors were, in principle, identifiable and personally liable for their own statements. The lesson for anyone contemplating similar litigation is that the internet does not dissolve individual responsibility for speech; it distributes it, and claimants must generally aim their legal remedies at the actual author of a given statement rather than at the person who merely provided the occasion for the ensuing public reaction.

WHY THIS CASE MATTERS BEYOND ROMANIA

For police officers, prison staff, court officials and other public servants across Council of Europe member States, Toth and Crișan is a useful, if sobering, guide to what Article 8 will and will not do for them when their conduct is filmed, photographed or described by a member of the public and shared on social media. It confirms that they are not without recourse: a legal framework enabling defamation or tort claims must exist, and where a publication genuinely distorts an officer’s conduct or exposes that officer to consequences unrelated to the legitimate public interest in accountable policing, Article 8 remains available. But it also confirms that low institutional rank offers no shield of anonymity once an officer is performing a public function in a public place, and that criticism of police conduct, even conveyed with the exclamation marks and rough edges typical of a heated Facebook post, will ordinarily be treated as speech on a matter of public interest rather than a private attack requiring compensation.

For anyone advising clients, whether officers seeking redress or private citizens who have posted about their encounters with the police, on the interaction between privacy, reputation and online expression, the judgment offers a workable map of the terrain: private individuals at one end, entitled to robust protection; political and public figures at the other, expected to tolerate wide-ranging and sometimes intemperate criticism; and, in the middle, the public servant, uniformed and identifiable, whose privacy interest survives but is calibrated, deliberately and consistently, to the public trust that the position itself demands.

Toth and Crișan v. Romania

1.  The applicants complained of a violation of their right to respect for their private life and reputation because the domestic courts had allegedly failed to strike a fair balance between the competing interests at stake following an allegedly defamatory post uploaded by a private individual on Facebook. They relied on Article 8 of the Convention.

2.  Mr Zoltán-Ovidiu Toth (“the first applicant”) and Mr Alin Crișan (“the second applicant”) were born in 1982 and 1974, respectively, and live in Oradea.

3.  The applicants are police officers working for the Oradea local police force (Poliţia Locală Oradea).

4.  On 8 April 2016 the applicants fined C.T. and her mother for a minor offence in connection with the disposal of household waste and with the conduct that those two private individuals had displayed towards them. As indicated in the judgment of Oradea District Court (“the District Court”) C.T. had challenged the fine and the national courts had established that (i) she had deposited the household waste in an unauthorised location but she had not insulted the applicants and (ii) the applicants had behaved inappropriately towards C.T. In reaching these conclusions, the competent courts had relied on testimonial evidence and a forensic expert report submitted by C.T., which indicated that on the date of the incident she had sustained bodily injuries which had not required a medical treatment. According to evidence in the case-file, the national courts had reduced the fine imposed on C.T.

5.  On the same date (8 April 2016) C.T. used her personal Facebook account to post a text accompanied by the applicants’ photograph to the public Facebook group “Oradea is us”. The post read as follows:

“Today the local police have screwed up once again. I went downstairs holding my child in my arms to take him to the car and after five minutes my mother also innocently came downstairs with the household waste. She was unaware that each owner’s association has its own bins. I explained this to her and I told her to leave the bag with the household waste next to the bin where she was standing, intending to take it to our courtyard myself, obviously, after placing my child in the car. It was logical that I was not going to leave it in the middle of the road!!!!!! In the meantime, the local police showed up [and] they jumped on us as if they were on fire [arși]. I explained to them what the problem was, but, eager to start a scandal, they did not want to]understand!!!! ‘Mister Domnule, wait for five minutes while I put my child in the car, then I’ll come back to put the household waste where it should go!’ No, they wanted me to provide them with my ID immediately, to drop everything and to stand to attention!! They did not even identify themselves until the moment that I said I was calling 112 emergency services. We were terribly scared! They verbally assaulted and pushed us. They did not let my mother drive away in her car … it was terrifying! How can anyone behave like that with two]women and a child? Do they really have so little dignity and respect towards people????!!!!!!!!”

6.  In the photograph, the applicants were depicted standing next to one another dressed in their police uniforms, with the first applicant holding a pen, a notebook and a mobile phone in his hand. Some cars, buildings and an unidentified person could be seen in the background.

7.  C.T.’s post received ninety-two comments and was “liked” by around 160 people. According to the applicants, it was also shared seventy-three times. In their view, that meant that the post was viewed more than 100,000 times, given that each user had more than 200 “friends” and that the online group in question had more than 24,000 members.

8.  Some of the people who commented on the post and engaged in the ensuing discussion about the event reported by C.T. referred to the applicants and to local police officers in general in a disrespectful manner, using expressions such as “scumbags”, “impostors”, “idiots”, “stupid”, “hillbillies”, “di.ks amounting to nothing”, “uneducated”, “crazy” and “worthless simpletons”. One of the people said that he wished that he could meet “specimens” like the applicants “to wipe the arrogance off their faces” and that, if the “scumbags” had been beaten up, they would have called the emergency services. One person stated that the second applicant appeared in several YouTube videos committing abuses. Three other people said that they had been fined by the applicants, that they had witnessed the second applicant acting overzealously and been given a hard time by him even though he had been off duty at the time, or that they had seen him harass a less-abled woman. One person said that she knew the applicants personally and was surprised by the information in C.T.’s post.

9.  In one of her replies to the comments, C.T. disclosed the second applicant’s full name after she was asked about his identity. In another reply to a third-party comment effectively condoning the applicants’ alleged reactions to C.T.’s behaviour, she denied that her intention had been to defame the applicants.

10.  On 19 August 2016 and on an unspecified date, respectively, the relevant authorities discontinued the disciplinary and criminal proceedings brought either by C.T. or by her mother against the applicants in connection with the events of 8 April 2016, apparently for lack of sufficient evidence.

11.  On 14 February 2017 the applicants brought an action in tort against C.T., claiming 50,000 Romanian lei (RON) (11,111 euros (EUR)) in respect of non-pecuniary damage and asking the court to order her to publish an apology in local newspapers and on the page of the Facebook group “Oradea is us”. They complained that C.T.’s post had defamed them and had affected their reputation and image because it had spread information which distorted reality, disseminated their photograph and the second applicant’s full name publicly to a wide audience without their consent and instigated and generated offensive third-party comments and threats.

12.  C.T.’s allegations that they had verbally and physically assaulted her and her mother were untrue. In fact, it had been C.T. who had been aggressive towards them and it had been her mother who had insulted them and had almost injured them as she drove away in her car. Moreover, C.T. had denied that she had been physically assaulted and had refused to lodge a complaint against the applicants when she had been questioned in that connection by other police officers who had been dispatched to the scene after C.T.’s telephone call to the emergency services. Furthermore, because of C.T.’s actions, the applicants’ family and friends had questioned their professional conduct and behaviour towards women, and random individuals had stopped them on the street and questioned them about the alleged abuses committed by them. Their employer had also opened disciplinary proceedings against them.

13.  On 26 June 2017 the District Court dismissed the action in tort. It held that the applicants had standing to bring the proceedings against C.T. because she had posted their photograph and identified the second applicant by his full name. Nevertheless, it found that the conclusions of the national courts described in paragraph 4 above had a res judicata effect.

14.  Moreover, even though the post had generated some trivial third-party comments about the applicants, it had not harmed their image. In fact, when some of the third parties had started using potentially offensive expressions, C.T. had clearly stated that she had intended only to report on the event in dispute and not to offend anyone.

15.  The applicants appealed against the judgment and contested the District Court’s assessment of the case. They argued that their image had been harmed by the post and not by what had happened at the scene of the events of 8 April 2016. Accordingly, the findings of the courts during the proceedings brought by C.T. against the fine imposed on her had been irrelevant to the action in tort which they had brought against her. Moreover, the applicants reiterated the arguments they had raised before the District Court and pointed to the fact that the courts had upheld the fine imposed on C.T. and the fact that the disciplinary and criminal proceedings opened against them in respect of the alleged events reported by C.T. had been closed by the relevant authorities on the grounds that the evidence against the applicants had been contradictory. They lastly argued that C.T. could have foreseen the results of her actions and that, in accordance with the case-law of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, any statement posted on Facebook could have legal consequences.

16.  On 12 January 2018 the Bihor County Court (“the County Court”) dismissed the applicants’ appeal and upheld the District Court’s judgment. It held that the applicants should have been mindful of the context and place in which they were operating when they had fined C.T., and of the type of relationship that had existed between them and her at that time.

17.  Also, the post had not initiated a defamatory campaign against them. It had merely reported C.T.’s perception of the event in which she had been directly involved.

18.  The applicants appealed on points of law against the judgment and largely reiterated the arguments raised before the County Court.

19.  Moreover, they contended that none of the information posted on Facebook had been censored, even though C.T. could have deleted any insults or inappropriate images. She was not a journalist and neither she nor the courts could rely in her defence on the rules applicable to journalistic freedom of expression. She was a private individual and therefore was under an obligation to adjust her public speech accordingly. Her actions had exceeded the limits of her right to freedom of expression and had been a way of exercising revenge on the police.

20.  By a final judgment of 28 February 2019, the Oradea Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) dismissed the applicants’ appeal on points of law and upheld the County Court’s judgment. Referring to principles deriving from the Court’s case-law on freedom of expression and to the provisions of the Convention and the Civil Code concerning the right to freedom of expression and the right to respect for private life, reputation and image, the Court of Appeal held that the principles developed in the Court’s case-law in respect of journalistic or political speech were also applicable to the present case.

21.  It also held that the post had been a way for C.T. to publicly manifest her right to freedom of expression with the intent to bring her message to the attention of a large number of users of the Facebook group. However, her post had not exceeded the limits of the aforementioned right afforded to her. It had been prompted by, and was an expression of, her momentary dissatisfaction at the applicants’ conduct while they had been exercising their professional duties and it expressed her opinion about the manner in which they had accomplished those duties. It was also supported by a sufficient factual basis.

22.  C.T.’s right to use the social media network in question as a means of communication could not be contested. Similarly, she could not be held responsible for the potential consequences of the comments made by third parties following her post, because every individual was responsible only for his or her own statements – given that civil liability was personal – and the conditions for third-party liability had not been met in her case. Moreover, the information disseminated by her post had been accurate and had been reviewed with res judicata effect.

23.  The Court of Appeal held that the post did not include offensive content and that all the indecent expressions used in the comments had been posted by third parties. C.T. could not have banned third parties from writing defamatory comments on the social media website in question or deleted those comments, and the closure of the proceedings brought by her against the applicants could not engage her civil liability. Furthermore, the limits of acceptable criticism were wider in the applicants’ case than in cases concerning ordinary citizens because the applicants were employees of a public service and the proper functioning of the State itself was at stake. The fact that C.T. had also disseminated the applicants’ photograph and the second applicant’s name could not have affected them in any way, given that they were public persons and the photograph in question did not portray them in an undignified or indecent manner.

24.  The Court reiterates that while the essential object of Article 8 is to protect the individual against arbitrary interference by the public authorities, it does not merely compel the State to abstain from such interference: in addition to this negative undertaking, there may be positive obligations inherent in effective respect for private or family life. These obligations may involve the adoption of measures designed to secure respect for private life even in the sphere of the relations of individuals between themselves. The boundary between the State’s positive and negative obligations under Article 8 does not lend itself to precise definition; the applicable principles are, nonetheless, similar. In both contexts regard must be had to the fair balance that has to be struck between the relevant competing interests; and in both contexts the State enjoys a certain margin of appreciation (Von Hannover v. Germany (no. 2) [GC], nos.40660/08 and 60641/08, §§ 98-99; Țiriac, § 72).

25.  Article 10 of the Convention guarantees “everyone” the freedom to receive and impart information and ideas and no distinction is made according to the nature of the aim pursued or the role played by natural or legal persons in the exercise of that freedom. It applies not only to the content of information but also to the means of dissemination, since any restriction imposed on such means necessarily interferes with the right to receive and impart information. Likewise, Article 10 guarantees not only the right to impart information but also the right of the public to receive it (Cengiz and Others v. Turkey, nos. 48226/10 and 14027/11, § 56).

26.  Article 10 does not, however, guarantee a wholly unrestricted freedom of expression even in respect of coverage of matters of serious public concern (Monica Macovei v. Romania, no. 53028/14, § 80). Any person who exercises freedom of expression (i) undertakes “duties and responsibilities” the scope of which depends on his or her situation and the technical means used (Gîrleanu v. Romania, no. 50376/09, § 92) and (ii) must not overstep certain limits, particularly with regard to respect for the reputation and the rights of others (Sanchez, § 149). The Court has therefore accepted that, in principle, any natural or legal person may be made the subject of various forms and degrees of individual or shared liability for defamatory or other types of unlawful speech in order to remedy effectively violations of personality rights (Delfi AS v. Estonia [GC], no. 64569/09, § 110; Sanchez, §§ 162-66, 183-85, 190, 192‑93, 201, 204).

27.  Where the complaint raised before the Court is that rights protected under Article 8 have been breached as a consequence of the exercise by others of their right to freedom of expression, due regard should be had, when applying Article 8, to the requirements of Article 10 of the Convention (Țiriac, § 73), bearing in mind that as a matter of principle the rights guaranteed by Article 8 and Article 10 deserve equal respect and the outcome of an application should not, in principle, vary according to whether it has been lodged with the Court under Article 8 or Article 10 of the Convention (Von Hannover, § 106, and Axel Springer AG, § 87).

28.  Relevant criteria for balancing the right to respect for private life against the right to freedom of expression include the contribution to a debate of public interest; the degree of notoriety of the person affected; the prior conduct of the person concerned; the circumstances in which a photograph was taken; and the content, form and consequences of the publication (Von Hannover, §§ 109‑113; Hájovský v. Slovakia, no. 7796/16, § 30).

29.  In cases such as the instant case where the information was disseminated on the internet and generated third-party comments, certain other criteria may be relevant for the outcome of the balancing exercise and may therefore need to be taken into account. They include the status of the alleged perpetrator, his or her specific liability for the third parties’ comments, the steps taken by him or her in relation to those comments and the possibility of holding the authors of those comments liable instead (Sanchez, §§ 179, 180, 190, 202).

30.  In this connection the Court is also mindful of the fact that the internet has become one of the principal means by which individuals exercise their right to freedom of expression. It provides essential tools for participation in activities and discussions concerning political issues and issues of general interest (Vladimir Kharitonov v. Russia, no. 10795/14, § 33; Sanchez, § 158). In the light of its accessibility and its capacity to store and communicate vast amounts of information, the internet plays an important role in enhancing the public’s access to news and facilitating the dissemination of information in general (Times Newspapers Ltd v. the United Kingdom (nos. 1 and 2), nos. 3002/03 and 23676/03, § 27). User-generated expressive activity on the internet provides an unprecedented platform for the exercise of freedom of expression (Delfi AS, § 110).

31.  The Court finds relevant, nevertheless, that the risk of harm posed by content and communications on the internet to the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and freedoms is certainly higher than that posed by the press, since unlawful speech, including hate speech and speech inciting violence, can be disseminated as never before, worldwide, in a matter of seconds, and sometimes remain persistently available online (Delfi AS, §§ 110 and 133).

32.  Moreover, although freedom of expression includes the publication of photographs, this is nonetheless an area in which the protection of the rights and reputation of others takes on particular importance, as the photographs may contain very personal or even intimate information about an individual and his or her family. In the cases in which the Court has had to balance the protection of private life against freedom of expression, it has always stressed the contribution made by photographs or articles in the press to a debate of general interest. Nevertheless, it has made a distinction between reporting facts – even controversial ones – capable of contributing to a debate in a democratic society, and reporting details of the private life of an individual who does not exercise official functions (Hájovský, § 31). Where the situation does not come within the sphere of any political or public debate and published photographs and accompanying commentaries relate exclusively to details of the person’s private life with the sole purpose of satisfying the curiosity of a particular readership, freedom of expression calls for a narrower interpretation (Hájovský, § 31).

33.  Lastly, the Court reiterates that in exercising its supervisory function, its task is not to take the place of the national courts but rather to review, in the light of the case as a whole, whether the decisions they have taken pursuant to their power of appreciation are compatible with the provisions of the Convention relied on (Axel Springer AG, § 86). Where the balancing exercise between the rights protected by Articles 8 and 10 of the Convention has been undertaken by the national authorities in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s case-law, the Court would require strong reasons to substitute its view for that of the domestic courts (Axel Springer AG, § 88).

34.  The Court notes that the applicants blamed C.T. for publicly disseminating their photograph and the second applicant’s full name to a wide audience on Facebook without their consent, while at the same time making untruthful remarks suggesting that the applicants had verbally and physically assaulted her and her mother, thus attracting offensive third-party comments.

35.  The applicants appear to have accepted that the national authorities had put in place a legal framework capable of providing adequate protection against the alleged violation of their right to respect for their private life and reputation arising from the above-mentioned circumstances. Indeed, they were able to bring an action in tort against C.T. to claim compensation.

36.  The domestic courts examined the circumstances in which C.T.’s statements had been made and whether her liability was engaged. Nevertheless, the applicants disagreed with their decision. The Court must therefore review whether the national courts struck a fair balance between the competing rights at stake in conformity with the criteria laid down in its case‑law.

37.  The Court reiterates that there is little scope under Article 10 § 2 of the Convention for restrictions on political speech or on debate on matters of public interest. The margin of appreciation of States is thus reduced where a debate on a matter of public interest is concerned (Satakunnan Markkinapörssi Oy and Satamedia Oy v. Finland [GC], no. 931/13, § 167).

38.  The national courts found that C.T.’s post intended to bring to the attention of the Facebook group “Oradea is us” her position about a matter which ultimately raised questions about the proper functioning of the State, namely the allegedly abusive and violent manner in which the applicants conducted themselves as local police officers while carrying out their professional obligations. Given that in working as law-enforcement officials the applicants constantly engaged in public activities and were bound by a duty to serve and protect, and that their profession was ultimately one which involved public trust, the public had a right to be informed about any possible abusive conduct on their part.

39.  Indeed, the Court has acknowledged that the use of force by State agents, particularly where it relates to allegations of police brutality or misconduct, was inherently a matter of significant public interest (Dyundin v. Russia, no. 37406/03, § 33; Bild GmbH & Co. KG v. Germany, no. 9602/18, §§ 32-33).

40.  C.T.’s post therefore concerned a matter of public concern, and the Court sees no reason to doubt that it was capable of contributing to a debate of general interest on the moral and professional integrity of local police officers and the proper functioning of certain public services.

41.  The Court reiterates that whilst a private individual unknown to the public may claim particular protection of his or her right to private life, the same is not true of political or public figures in respect of whom the limits of critical comment are wider, as they are inevitably and knowingly exposed to public scrutiny and must therefore display a greater degree of tolerance (Monica Macovei, § 79).

42.  It cannot be said, however, that public servants knowingly lay themselves open to close scrutiny of their every word and deed to the extent to which politicians do and should therefore be treated on an equal footing with the latter when it comes to criticism of their actions (Stancu and Others v. Romania, no. 22953/16, § 116; Bild GmbH & Co. KG, § 33). Public servants must enjoy public confidence in conditions free of undue perturbation if they are to be successful in performing their tasks and it may therefore prove necessary to protect them from offensive, abusive or defamatory attacks or unfounded accusations when on duty (Chernysheva v. Russia (dec.), no. 77062/01; Stancu and Others, § 115). Nonetheless, public servants acting in an official capacity are subject to wider limits of acceptable criticism than ordinary citizens (Mamère v. France, no. 12697/03, § 27). A certain degree of immoderation may fall within those limits (Chkhartishvili v. Georgia, no. 31349/20, § 56), particularly where it involves a reaction to what is perceived as unjustified or unlawful conduct on the part of public servants (Savva Terentyev v. Russia, no. 10692/09, § 75).

43.  The Government have pointed out, and the applicants have not argued otherwise, that they had not denied in their submissions before the national courts that they were public persons. Moreover, the courts (i) held that the applicants were public persons and (ii) acknowledged that the limits of acceptable criticism were wider in their case, essentially because they were public servants.

44.  As regards the applicants’ status as public persons, the Court notes that it has found in the specific case of ordinary police officers that they could not be considered public figures in the same sense as politicians or any other persons who, through their acts or their position, have entered the public arena, as long as the officers had merely acted in their official capacity, without seeking public attention (Bild GmbH & Co. KG, § 32).

45.  In the applicants’ case, none of the available evidence suggests that they sought to be in the public eye or to receive public attention either before or after C.T. posted her message. It is true that by virtue of their professional activity the applicants seem to have interacted with and been known by some members of the online group “Oradea is us” at the time C.T. posted her message. However, the national courts did not give any weight to this evidence or to the applicants’ prior conduct in the light of their involvement in previous public activities. The evidence and conduct in question did not therefore have any consequences for the courts’ conclusion that the applicants were public persons or for the outcome of the balancing exercise conducted by them with regard to the competing rights at stake (Fuchsmann v. Germany, no. 71233/13, § 49).

46.  Furthermore, there is nothing in the case-file to suggest that in the applicants’ case the above-mentioned public exposure and attention exceeded a level that the activity conducted by an ordinary public servant acting in his or her official capacity in general or a police officer in particular could reasonably be expected to generate. It cannot therefore be said that the applicants could be considered on that basis to be public figures in the sense described in paragraph 44 above or even well‑known figures in their professional field for that matter (Petrie v. Italy, no. 25322/12, § 51; Stroea v. Romania [Committee], no. 76969/11, § 32).

47.  As to the level of criticism acceptable in the applicants’ case, the Court notes that they acknowledged that they were public servants. Even though none of the evidence suggests that they were high-ranking public servants or that they had applied for or occupied positions of particular public concern within the police force (Medžlis Islamske Zajednice Brčko and Others v. Bosnia and Herzegovina [GC], no. 17224/11, § 98; Stancu and Others, §§ 127-29), they never denied that they were acting in their official capacity at the time of the events in issue.

48.  Accordingly, the Court agrees with the national courts that the applicants belonged to a group of persons who could not claim protection of their right to respect for their private life in the same way as ordinary individuals and were therefore subject to wider limits of acceptable criticism than such individuals (Stancu and Others, § 129).

49.  The Court notes that it is undisputed by the parties that the applicants were neither asked for nor gave consent for their photograph, or names for that matter, to be disseminated on Facebook by C.T. Nor did C.T. take any steps to conceal the applicants’ faces before posting their photograph.

50.  It reiterates that the publication of a photograph must in general be considered to constitute a more substantial interference with the right to respect for private life than the mere communication of the person’s name (Vučina v. Croatia (dec.), no. 58955/13, § 46). It further observes that, whereas there is no general rule under Article 8 of the Convention requiring that police officers should generally not be recognisable in press publications, there may be circumstances in which the interest of the individual officer in the protection of his or her private life prevails. This would be the case, for example, if publication of the image of a recognisable officer, irrespective of any misconduct, is likely to lead to specific adverse consequences in his or her private or family life (Bild GmbH & Co. KG, § 35).

51.  The national courts found that the fact that C.T. had disseminated the photograph and the name in question could not have affected the applicants, given that they were public persons and that the photograph did not portray them in an undignified or indecent manner.

52.  The Court observes that while it has disagreed with the national courts that the applicants could be considered public persons, it has nevertheless accepted their view that the applicants could not have the same expectation of privacy as an ordinary individual in the specific circumstances of their case.

53.  The Court further observes that it is uncontested that the applicants’ photograph was taken on a public street, while the applicants were fining C.T. which had prompted a call by C.T. to the emergency services and the dispatch of a second police unit to the scene, and had obviously attracted some public attention. The photograph showed the applicants dressed in their police uniforms, while performing their duties as law-enforcement agents.

54.  The national courts did not find – and in any event there is nothing in the case file to suggest otherwise – that the photograph in question or the second applicant’s name had been taken covertly, using illicit means or subterfuge or taking advantage of any type of vulnerable position (contrast Egeland and Hanseid v. Norway, no. 34438/04, § 61). Thus, the Court agrees with the opinion of the County Court that the applicants should have been mindful of the public context underlying their interaction with C.T. and considers that they could not have excluded that they could be photographed, given their status and alleged conduct (Vučina, § 35).

55.  The Court also observes, as did the national courts, that the photograph was not taken in circumstances showing the applicants in an unfavourable light and that it did not present them in a manner which could have undermined their public standing from the reader’s perspective or show a distorted image of them. Judging from the manner in which it was used, the Court considers that the photograph was taken merely to lend support to the content of C.T.’s comments discussing a matter of public concern and illustrating the veracity of some of the information contained therein (compare, mutatis mutandis, Couderc and Hachette Filipacchi Associés, § 135).

56.  Thus, in so far as the manner in which the photograph was obtained does not raise any issue under Article 8, the mere communication of the second applicant’s name next to the photograph, without any negative connotations associated with that name and/or the distortion of the photograph, cannot be considered a particularly substantial interference with the right to respect for private life (Vučina, § 46).

57.  The national courts did not expressly give any weight to the fact that C.T. had posted the applicants’ photograph and the second applicant’s name without concealing their faces or obtaining their consent. Even though the Court has found that such measures may be relevant when balancing competing rights at stake in cases such as the present one, these factors form only part of the overall criteria that may be taken into account for the balancing exercise in question, including the content of the coverage and its consequences for the person concerned (Bild GmbH & Co. KG, § 35).

58.  As to the subject of C.T.’s post, the Court notes, as did the national courts, that it exclusively concerned the applicants’ professional activities and conduct in a public context, without mentioning any details of their private life (Sabou and Pircalab v. Romania, no. 46572/99, § 39).

59.  Moreover, they did not find that the post contained offensive, indecent or degrading content in relation to the applicants. Furthermore, the courts were of the view that the post expressed C.T.’s dissatisfaction at the applicants’ conduct and her opinion about an event in which she had been involved. Whereas they did not attach any weight to the fact that the disciplinary and criminal proceedings opened against the applicants had been closed, they relied on the findings in the proceedings brought by C.T. to challenge the fine to establish that the information disseminated by C.T. was accurate. Indeed, they found that C.T.’s comments and conduct were supported by a sufficient factual basis and that there was no indication that the dissemination of the applicants’ photographs and of the second applicant’s name had had any negative consequences for them.

60.  While the courts agreed with the applicants’ arguments to the effect that some of the third-party comments were indecent and defamatory, they found that C.T. could not be held responsible for the potential consequences of those comments because every individual was responsible only for his or her own statements and the conditions for third-party liability were not met in her case. Furthermore, C.T. could not have banned the third parties from writing such comments; nor could she have removed them.

61.  Having regard to the information in the case file, the Court finds no reason to disagree with the domestic courts’ assessment. It notes that C.T.’s post taken as a whole conveyed nothing more than her critical impressions of the manner in which the applicants had acted in their professional capacity. It also did not contain any personal insults or disparaging remarks or any unsubstantiated allegations, regardless of whether her comments could be viewed as constituting value judgments or statements of fact.

62.  In this context, even though some of her statements alleged unlawful actions by the applicants and she could have foreseen the possibility that the public would react to them (Sanchez, § 193), no evidence was adduced that C.T. did not act in good faith when posting her comments and the applicants’ photograph and disseminating the second applicant’s name or has sought only to gratuitously stir the public’s emotions and portray the applicants in a negative light.

63.  The Court finds relevant in this connection that C.T. and her mother also used both criminal and administrative remedies to bring their grievances against the applicants to the direct attention of the relevant authorities. Moreover, C.T. disclosed the second applicant’s full name only in one of her replies to a third-party comment on the post and only after she was asked expressly about the applicants’ identity. Furthermore, she appears to have sought to distance herself from the offensive third-party comments by expressly stating that she had not intended to defame anyone through her actions.

64.  The fact that the form and manner in which C.T.’s post was written and that some of the expressions contained therein were provocative and could attract the public’s attention cannot in itself raise an issue under the Court’s case-law (Axel Springer AG, §§ 81, 108). As acknowledged above, persons reacting to what is perceived as unjustified or unlawful conduct on the part of public servants are allowed to have recourse to a degree of exaggeration or even provocation, or in other words to make somewhat immoderate statements.

65.  Turning to the question of the consequences of C.T.’s post for the applicants, the Court observes that even though, as essentially acknowledged by the national courts, it was disseminated on a publicly accessible online platform without any apparent restrictions, it seems to have drawn very little actual public attention or provoked much of a reaction. Indeed, while the Government have not contested as such the applicants’ allegation that the post had quite likely generated more than 100,000 views, the Court notes that it was actually commented on and “liked” by a very low number of people overall.

66.  The Court also observes in this connection that, at the time of the events under examination, C.T. was a private individual who did not possess any expertise in the digital services field (contrast Sanchez, § 180). Furthermore, she did not disseminate her post during an electoral campaign or in any kind of tense political or social climate and was not a journalist, a politician, a well-known blogger or a popular user of social media, let alone a public or influential figure, a fact which could have attracted further public attention to her comments and therefore enhanced the potential impact of her statements (contrast Sanchez, §§ 176, 180, 187, 201). In addition, the applicants themselves acknowledged that C.T.’s post would have received maximum attention only immediately after it was uploaded and its visibility, impact and consequences could only have decreased significantly over time. They did not ask the national courts to order the removal of the post either while the proceedings were pending or subsequently. Given the circumstances, the Court considers that the potential of C.T.’s post to actually reach a wide segment of the public, either at the time of its publication or at a later date, was limited.

67.  There can be no doubt that the expressions used by some of the third parties in their comments were insulting and defamatory. Nevertheless, the Court observes that nothing in the case-file suggests that C.T. sought to invite or endorse the use of the offending expressions by those third parties. Moreover, the applicants have not brought forth any convincing evidence that C.T. was the administrator of the Facebook group to which she had uploaded her post or that she had the power to control the content of the messages posted by the other members of the group, or that could generally contradict the national courts’ findings and show that C.T. had failed to comply with any duties that could reasonably have been expected of her, as a mere private individual of no notoriety or representativeness, in terms of intervening efficiently on social media platforms (compare and contrast Sanchez, §§ 185, 190, 199 and 201) without running the risk of self-censorship (Sanchez, § 184).

68.  The Court further observes that the offending expressions used by the third parties were little more than “vulgar abuse” of a kind – albeit belonging to a low register of style – which is common in communication on many internet portals and that this consideration reduces the impact that can be attributed to those expressions (Magyar Tartalomszolgáltatók Egyesülete and Index.hu Zrt v. Hungary, no. 22947/13, § 77). Moreover, all of the comments in question would, in the context in which they were written, most likely be understood by readers as conjecture which should not be taken seriously (see, mutatis mutandis, Tamiz v. the United Kingdom (dec.), no. 3877/14, § 81).

69.  The Court is also mindful in this connection that the third-party comments, albeit made publicly, were directed at police officers who arguably must have been trained in how to handle such conduct (Chkhartishvili, § 57). There is no evidence in the case file, however, that the applicants even attempted to bring to justice at least some of the authors of those comments. The Court finds relevant in this connection that the acts of which C.T. was accused by the applicants were clearly distinct from those committed by the authors of the unlawful comments and that the applicants have not pointed to any specific difficulties that they might have faced in identifying the authors of those comments (Sanchez, §§ 202-03). Thus, the attribution of liability by the courts to C.T. alone for both the post itself and the content of the third-party comments, even in the context of civil-law proceedings such as the ones envisaged in the present case, could have had a chilling effect on freedom of expression on the internet and could have been particularly detrimental for private individuals who are acting in good faith and trying to raise awareness about matters of general concern (Sanchez, § 205).

70.  At the same time, the Court is unable to discern any concrete negative impact of C.T.’s post on the applicants’ private and professional life given that, as indicated by the applicants, both the disciplinary and criminal investigations opened in respect of them were discontinued. Moreover, it appears that C.T.’s post also prompted positive third-party comments about the manner in which they had performed their duties.

71.  Even assuming that the applicants’ allegations that strangers or family and friends had questioned them about their conduct may be true and that C.T.’s post and the subsequent third-party comments might be expected to have affected them to some extent, the Court has serious doubts that those consequences were sufficiently serious to override the public’s interest in receiving the information disseminated by C.T. (Țiriac, § 98).

72.  In the light of the above, the Court considers that the national courts conducted the required thorough balancing exercise between the competing rights at stake in conformity with the criteria laid down in the Court’s case‑law. Having regard to the margin of appreciation available to the national authorities when weighing up divergent interests, the Court sees no strong reasons to substitute its view for that of the domestic courts. It cannot therefore be said that by dismissing the applicants’ claim, the courts failed to comply with the positive obligations incumbent on the national authorities to protect the applicants’ right to respect for their private life under Article 8 of the Convention. There has accordingly been no violation of that provision.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

1. Declares the application admissible;

2. Holds that there has been no violation of Article 8 of the Convention.

The applicants in the case – 47 Serbian citizens – took part in this peaceful gathering. At around 7 p.m., at the moment when the participants were observing a fifteen-minute silence in memory of the victims, the crowd was suddenly struck by a powerful sound wave. According to the applicants’ own accounts, they experienced sudden instinctive fear, panic, shock, accelerated heartbeat, trembling, hearing problems, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia and similar symptoms. Some sustained bodily injuries as a result of the panic-induced crush. Witnesses described how it all began like a human “avalanche”: people ran, fell and screamed without understanding what was happening; the sound resembled the roar of an approaching aircraft or train. Up to four thousand people reported a similar experience, and many of them sought medical assistance in the following days because of persisting symptoms.

The authorities’ response was markedly one of denial. The Minister of Internal Affairs initially stated that the ministry possessed no sonic cannon or similar weapon, but later confirmed that the police owned acoustic systems (in particular the LRAD 100X and LRAD 450XL), acquired in 2021, while maintaining that they had never been used because they are regarded as unlawful weapons under Serbian law. The Serbian Law on the Police does not provide for the use of any kind of sonic or acoustic weapon – that is, there is a legal vacuum in which any use of such a weapon would be ultra vires. Activists submitted to the United Nations office in Belgrade a petition signed by more than half a million people, demanding an international investigation. The authorities, by contrast, turned for assistance to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. The published FSB report concluded that acoustic devices had not been used and advanced the theory of a “staged provocation” with movements synchronised via smartphones; independent experts criticised this report as failing to meet the formal requirements for documents of this kind, lacking methodology and an evidentiary basis, and more closely resembling propaganda.

In April 2025, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights carried out a mission to Serbia, focused on policing during the demonstrations and on the working conditions of civil society and human rights defenders. He stressed the critical importance of preserving the principles of democratic policing for the safety of all citizens and warned the authorities against stigmatising protesters through discourse that falsely portrays the protests as a “colour revolution”. The Commissioner also expressed concern about the unfavourable environment for non-governmental organisations and human rights defenders, aggravated by reports of the use of spyware against human rights defenders and journalists, stigmatisation campaigns and leaks of personal data.

THE NATURE OF SONIC WEAPONS AND THE PARALLEL WITH “HAVANA SYNDROME”

Acoustic (sonic) weapons operate through the propagation of sound – pressure oscillations travelling through an elastic medium (in particular air) – directed at striking a target. Most such devices are based on ultrasound, low frequencies or infrasound emitted at high intensity levels. So-called “long-range acoustic devices” (LRADs, or “sound cannons”) emit, instead of bullets, sound waves of extreme loudness. Ordinary sound weakens with distance, yet the acoustic signal of such a device can be heard loudly at distances of up to a kilometre, because the waves are emitted under high pressure. The impact of such a wave on the eardrum is capable of causing significant physical injury, but no less important is the psychological harm of an “invisible attack”. Despite the labelling of such means as “non-lethal” or “less lethal”, they are open to the same objections as other technologies bearing this label, and their use together with kinetic means in fact increases the risk of death. In international law, acoustic weapons have no authoritative definition and are not regulated, nor are they the subject of dedicated multilateral policy discussions.

This phenomenon is usefully considered in connection with the so-called “Havana syndrome” – a set of unexplained health disorders (headache, nausea, balance disturbances, auditory and cognitive symptoms) attributed to the possible effect of acoustic or directed-energy sources. Common to both phenomena is a mechanism that is invisible, easily denied and difficult to document, yet capable of causing entirely real physiological and psychological harm. It is precisely this combination – the reality of injury in the absence of obvious traces – that makes such means especially dangerous from the standpoint of human rights protection: the harm occurs, but proving it is made difficult, which creates room for denial with impunity.

WHY SUCH POLICING PRACTICES THREATEN HUMAN RIGHTS

The use of a sonic weapon against a peaceful assembly engages several Convention rights at once. First of all, Article 3 is concerned (prohibition of torture and of inhuman or degrading treatment), and in certain circumstances Article 2 as well (the right to life): a means that causes mass panic, bodily injuries and potentially serious health consequences for a large number of people is fully capable of reaching the threshold of severity envisaged by Article 3. The State’s positive obligations under this Article, as formulated in the Court’s case-law, comprise three elements: the obligation to put in place a legislative and regulatory framework of protection; in clearly defined circumstances, the obligation to take operational measures to protect specific individuals from a risk of prohibited treatment; and the obligation to carry out an effective investigation of arguable allegations of such treatment. Alongside this, Article 8 is engaged (respect for private life, which encompasses a person’s physical and psychological integrity), as are Article 11 (freedom of peaceful assembly) and Article 10 (freedom of expression).

The fundamental flaw of a sonic weapon lies in its indiscriminate character. A sound wave cannot be directed solely at those particular individuals who are allegedly behaving aggressively – it strikes the entire crowd without distinction: peaceful protesters, passers-by, journalists, medics, the elderly, children. This makes it practically impossible to comply with the requirement of proportionality, which is an indispensable condition for any lawful use of force by law-enforcement officers. Interference with Convention rights is lawful only where it is prescribed by law, pursues a legitimate aim and is necessary and proportionate in a democratic society. In the present case, even the first condition is not met: since the Serbian Law on the Police does not provide for the use of a sonic weapon, any use of it is not “prescribed by law” and is therefore unlawful under domestic law itself.

A particular threat is posed by the “invisible” and easily deniable character of such an impact. Where the harm is real but difficult to prove, the burden of proof in effect shifts onto the victims, and the State is tempted to deny the very fact that the weapon was used. This generates a structural risk of impunity, which is itself a threat to human rights, as it renders impossible the effective protection and restoration of the violated right. Finally, the use of such means has a pronounced chilling effect: the awareness that participation in the next protest may turn into a sudden attack on one’s health deters people from exercising freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. The matter therefore concerns not only harm to specific applicants at a specific moment, but also a preventive, future-oriented risk to an indeterminate and very wide circle of persons.

THE EROSION OF TRUST IN THE POLICE

Democratic policing rests on legitimacy and the consent of society. According to the classic principles of policing, the effectiveness of the police depends not on fear but on approval, voluntary cooperation and the trust of the population. The use of a weapon that harms peaceful citizens turns the very protective function of the police inside out, transforming a body intended to safeguard people’s safety into a source of danger to them. Such an inversion destroys the social contract on which policing by consent rests, and has long-term consequences for public safety, for people’s willingness to cooperate with the police, and for the rule of law in general.

Trust is destroyed not only by the very fact of the possible use of a weapon, but also by the pattern of the authorities’ subsequent conduct – denial and concealment. The Minister’s contradictory statements (first a denial of the very existence of sonic cannons, then an admission of their acquisition in 2021 coupled with a denial of their use), and especially the handing over of the “investigation” to a foreign special service – the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation – strip the process of any signs of independence and impartiality. A report prepared by such a service and assessed by experts as propagandistic and methodologically untenable is not only incapable of establishing the truth but also finally undermines public trust. An investigation that is not independent, impartial, prompt and capable of leading to the identification and punishment of those responsible does not satisfy the procedural limb of Article 3 of the Convention and at the same time destroys the legitimacy of the law-enforcement system.

The erosion of trust is deepened by accompanying practices: the stigmatisation of protesters as participants in a “colour revolution”, discrediting campaigns, reports of the use of spyware against journalists and human rights defenders, and leaks of personal data. All of this narrows civic space and entrenches the perception of the police as an instrument of political pressure rather than as a service to society. The only path to restoring trust in such circumstances is an effective, independent and impartial investigation, full transparency as to the means available and the circumstances of their possible use, and genuine accountability of those responsible. In the absence of this, the State loses not only trust in the police but also the capacity to maintain public order by methods compatible with democracy.

A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE APPLICATION OF RULE 39 OF THE RULES OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Rule 39 of the Rules of Court governs interim (provisional) measures. Formally, it is contained not in the text of the Convention itself but in the Rules of Court, and it allows the Court, in exceptional circumstances – at the request of a party or of any other person concerned, or of its own motion – to indicate to the parties any interim measure which it considers should be adopted. Although formally this is an “indication”, the binding force of such measures derives from Article 34 of the Convention (the right of individual application): a State’s failure to comply with a Rule 39 measure may constitute a violation of Article 34. This approach was established in the Grand Chamber judgment Mamatkulov and Askarov v. Turkey [GC] and confirmed, in particular, in Paladi v. Moldova [GC], Savriddin Dzhurayev v. Russia and Olaechea Cahuas v. Spain. Interim measures are thus de facto binding for compliance.

The conditions for the application of Rule 39 form a settled test. A measure is taken only on an exceptional basis where there is, first, an imminent risk; secondly, irreparable harm; and thirdly, a Convention right of such a character that the harm caused would not subsequently be amenable to reparation, restoration or adequate compensation. The burden of substantiating an imminent risk of irreparable harm rests on the applicant. Measures may be taken where this is necessary in the interests of the parties or of the proper conduct of the proceedings. The classic field of application of Rule 39 is cases concerning expulsion, extradition or forced return, in which the return of a person would expose them to a real risk of death (Article 2) or of torture or inhuman treatment (Article 3) – along the logic expressed as early as Soering v. the United Kingdom as regards non-return. Outside this field, interim measures are granted extremely rarely.

It is for this very reason that the decision in the present case is a notable and atypical example of the application of Rule 39, distinguished by several features at once. First, the measure has a preventive and future-oriented character: it is intended not to stop a specific imminent act against a named person at a known moment (such as a planned deportation), but to prevent an entire category of future conduct – any use of sonic devices for crowd control – at indeterminate future protests. Secondly, the measure has a general and collective character: it protects an indeterminate and exceptionally wide circle of persons, potentially the entire protesting community, rather than specific applicants who suffer individualised harm. Thirdly, it is open-ended in time – it operates “until further order”. Fourthly, it is addressed to the conduct of the State in the sphere of public-order maintenance and policing, rather than in the classic migration domain.

The Court’s reasoning was concise but telling. In granting the measure, the Court noted that the use of such a weapon for crowd control is unlawful under Serbian law, and also drew attention to the potentially serious health consequences for a large number of persons. It was precisely the combination of unlawfulness under domestic law with a grave and irreversible risk to the health of many people that, in the Court’s view, satisfied the threshold of imminence and irreparability of harm. At the same time, the Court strictly adhered to the principle of not prejudging the outcome: granting the measure does not mean that the Court has taken any position as to whether a sonic weapon was in fact used on 15 March 2025, and it does not affect any subsequent findings as to the admissibility or the merits of the case. Yet the very fact of granting the measure under such strict conditions signals at least the existence of an arguable (prima facie) complaint and of a real, rather than illusory, risk – otherwise the exceptional threshold of Rule 39 could not have been reached.

No less important for understanding the limits of Rule 39 is what the Court refused to grant. The applicants’ two other requests – not to allow the criminal prosecution of persons taking part in the public discussion of the events of 15 March, and to order the conduct of an effective investigation – the Court found to fall outside the Rule 39 procedure. This delineates the doctrinal limits of interim measures: Rule 39 is a shield against imminent irreparable physical harm, not an instrument for the preventive protection of the interests of freedom of expression or of the criminal process, nor a mechanism for compelling the conduct of an investigation. The latter is a matter of the State’s positive obligations, falling within the examination of the merits, rather than a subject for an interim measure. Such a position is consistent with the Court’s settled restrictive approach to Rule 39 and prevents it from being turned into a general means of influencing national policy.

Finally, an interim measure cannot exist in a vacuum: it is tied to existing or imminent proceedings. The Court therefore gave the applicants one month to submit a substantive application under Article 34 of the Convention. The State to which the measure is addressed is obliged to comply with it, and non-compliance risks a finding of a violation of Article 34; compliance is supervised by the Court and the Committee of Ministers. The significance of this case extends far beyond it: it is the first instance in the Court’s practice in which the question of acoustic (sonic) weapons has become the subject of an interim measure, and it will most likely shape European standards on “less lethal” crowd-control technologies and on the positive obligations of States. The case demonstrates the adaptability of Rule 39 beyond the migration paradigm – its suitability for responding to systemic risks in the sphere of public order – even though the Court formulated its measure cautiously and narrowly.

CONCLUSIONS

The case of Đorović and Others v. Serbia crystallises three interrelated propositions. First, the use of an indiscriminate, easily deniable weapon against peaceful assemblies is incompatible with the Convention: it engages Articles 3, 8, 10 and 11 and breaches the State’s positive obligations to protect people’s physical and psychological integrity and to carry out an effective investigation. Secondly, such practices, compounded by denial and by the imitation of an investigation by forces lacking independence, destroy the legitimacy and public trust on which democratic policing rests, transforming the police from a service of protection into a source of threat. Thirdly, Rule 39, traditionally a migration instrument, became in this case a rare preventive shield that protected an entire civic community from irreversible harm.

For Ukraine and other Council of Europe member States, this precedent is at once a warning and a standard. Crowd-control technologies require a clear legislative basis, strict observance of necessity and proportionality, independent oversight and an effective investigation of any allegations of their use. These requirements are entirely in keeping with the standards of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) on the use of force by law-enforcement officers and on the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty or under the control of the police. In the absence of these guarantees, the State risks losing both human rights and its own legitimacy: when the police use a weapon against citizens and then conceal it, what is lost is not only trust in the police but the very foundational condition of public order in a democratic society.

I deliberately make a point at the very outset that ought to be superfluous, but under present conditions is not: this text cannot, in any dimension, be construed as support for the territorial recruitment centres (TCCs) in those of their actions that constitute crimes and gross violations of the law. I write this as an advocate whose client was himself recently unlawfully deprived of liberty by a territorial recruitment centre; as an advocate who conducts administrative cases against the TCCs. My position on the crimes committed by TCC officials therefore needs no explanation – it is unequivocal.

But this post is not about the TCCs. It is about something far more dangerous: about the fact that society has simultaneously and unanimously demonstrated a readiness to justify torture, provided that the torture is applied – in quotation marks – “to scumbags.” About the idea that “proper” torture inflicted on villains is not merely permissible, but just and even desirable. This is precisely my central message.

What, in fact, happened

First, the facts – because it is in their juxtaposition that the essence of the problem lies.

Officers of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) exposed, in one of the district territorial recruitment and social support centres of the Odesa region, a large-scale scheme of unlawfully coercing citizens into mobilisation. In order to improve conscription figures, officials of the institution unlawfully held men on the centre’s premises, beat them, intimidated them, and exerted psychological pressure. The investigation also established individual instances of acts of a sexual nature of a violent character committed against the victims. Six TCC employees were assisted by three representatives of a local civic organisation, who tracked down citizens and gathered information about them. Nine members of the group were detained; they were notified of suspicion of torture, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and robbery committed by an organised group. The court chose a preventive measure in the form of detention in custody without the right to post bail.

This is torture. The SBI called it torture. The law calls it torture. And that is correct.

A PARALLEL EVENT

On social media, the public association “Non-Stop Ukraine” published a video, filmed, presumably, in the Odesa SIZO, showing a man – allegedly that same TCC employee – being forced to crawl on the floor, to perform dog commands, and to carry slippers in his teeth to other inmates. The commands were given to him by the so-called “overseer” (smotryashchiy) of the block. The State Criminal-Executive Service confirmed the opening of an internal inquiry, the management of the Odesa SIZO was suspended, and the SBI opened proceedings.

And here is the most important point. This second event was almost unanimously labelled by the media, officials, and society as “abuse” and “humiliation.” Not torture. Merely “abuse.” And it is precisely in this substitution of words that the entire machinery of legitimisation is concealed.

THE TWOFOLD MOVEMENT OF PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS

When the SBI exposed the group of TCC employees, society exploded. But it exploded not with indignation against torture as such. It exploded with popular vengeance.

In the mass reaction, two movements occurred simultaneously, which only at first glance appear unrelated.

The first movement is the demonisation of the TCC employees. This is understandable: particular officials who tortured and robbed citizens for the sake of figures deserve the response prescribed by law. But demonisation is not justice. Demonisation transforms a specific human being from a suspect, protected by the presumption of innocence, into an abstract “villain” with respect to whom, supposedly, “anything goes.”

The second movement is the whitewashing of the staff of the Odesa pre-trial detention centre – or, more precisely, of those who organised and permitted the torture of an inmate within the walls of a state institution. The treatment applied to the detained TCC employee was, in effect, recognised by society as lawful and just. “He deserved it.” “Serves him right.” “Justice at last.” Torture carried out by inmates under the tacit supervision of the SIZO administration was turned into an instrument of popular vengeance – and, in that capacity, approved.

This is where the catastrophe occurs. For the very same torture that society rightly condemns when it is inflicted by TCC employees is the one it welcomes when it is inflicted in the SIZO – against the “right” victim.

“ABUSE” OR TORTURE? ON THE SUBSTITUTION OF WORDS

Note the language. What the SBI defendants did is “torture.” What the staff of the Odesa pre-trial detention centre did is merely “abuse” or “humiliation.”

This is neither coincidence nor journalistic carelessness. This is legitimisation in action.

Forcing an adult to crawl on their knees, to perform dog commands, to carry footwear in their teeth to other prisoners – this is not “abuse” in the everyday sense of the word. This is classic degrading treatment, and in terms of its intensity, systematic character, and purpose it is torture within the meaning of Article 3 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Article 127 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. For decades the European Court of Human Rights has qualified precisely such acts – humiliation that destroys the personality, that places a person in the position of an animal – as a violation of Article 3 of the Convention.

When we call torture “abuse,” we make the first and most important concession. We soften the word in order to soften the act, in order ultimately to soften the prohibition. The lowering of the threshold of torture begins right here – in the vocabulary.

The most dangerous idea of contemporary Ukraine: “proper” torture

Let me state plainly what hangs in the air and what no one dares to say aloud: the idea has taken hold in society that torture is acceptable if it is applied to a villain.

This is the idea of a conditional, selective, “just” prohibition of torture. The idea that torture is a tool that is bad in the wrong hands, but good in the “right” hands, against the “right” objects.

This is a direct and absolute negation of the very concept of human rights.

For the prohibition of torture is absolute. It knows no exceptions. Article 3 of the Convention is one of the few that is not subject to any derogation, even in conditions of war or a state of emergency. No exceptional circumstances – neither war, nor the threat of war, nor internal political instability, nor any other state of emergency – can serve as a justification for torture. None. Never. Against no one.

And here it is worth recalling two circumstances that are forgotten in the heat of popular vengeance.

First, the person who was tortured in the SIZO had not been convicted. No verdict has been rendered against him. He is a suspect, nothing more. The presumption of innocence is not a formality for advocates’ speeches, but a load-bearing element of the entire edifice of law.

Second – and this is fundamental – even if a verdict is rendered, even if guilt is fully proven, this in no way justifies torture. A convicted murderer, rapist, torturer – all of them retain the right not to be subjected to torture. Not because they “deserve” it, but because the prohibition of torture protects not them – it protects us. It protects the very idea of human dignity, which cannot be taken away for any guilt. A society that agrees to torture “villains” very quickly discovers that the circle of “villains” expands, and that who falls within it is decided not by a court.

“AND IMAGINE WHAT THEY DO TO THE REST”

And the final, coldest thought. The acts permitted against the TCC employee were carried out languidly, openly, without concealment, with absolute cynicism – so much so that they were filmed on video. If such things are done for show, without hiding, to a person whose case is guaranteed to become public – imagine what is happening within the walls of that same Odesa SIZO to those whose names no one will ever learn. To those for whom there is no one to stand up. To those whose humiliation no one will film on a phone and post online.

This is precisely why this case is so important. It is not an exception, but an indicator. It shows not that a cruel “overseer” has appeared in one block, but that an entire system tolerates, uses, and tacitly approves torture – on condition that the victim is the “right” one.

THE INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE: A MACHINE OF BUREAUCRATIC BRUSH-OFFS

I did not confine myself to observations. I addressed the authorities – the State Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Odesa regional and district prosecutor’s offices, the Ministry of Justice, the SIZO institution itself, and the relevant interregional directorate – with a consolidated request and a statement concerning possible criminal offences in the conditions of the Odesa SIZO.

What did I receive? Brush-offs. In their purest, laboratory-pure form.

The Office of the Prosecutor General forwarded my statement “by territorial jurisdiction” to the Odesa regional prosecutor’s office – and notified me of this. By another letter the OPG forwarded the appeal “by competence” and kindly explained that I could appeal the actions of the investigator or prosecutor under the procedure of Articles 303–310 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Khadzhibey district prosecutor’s office of the city of Odesa forwarded my information requests further on and separately noted that it “is not the proper holder of the requested information.”

Not a single body said, “Yes, we are looking into this, here is what has been done.” Each one said, “This is not quite for us” – and redirected it further round the circle. A torture complaint is passed between instances like a hot potato, until it cools down and gets lost.

Here it is, the institutional cover of that same legitimisation. Society approves torture from below – and the state evades reacting from above. Both lead to the same point: impunity. And the impunity of torture is not a side effect. It is, according to the entire case-law of the ECtHR and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), a separate and self-standing violation, because it is precisely impunity that makes torture systemic.

IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION: ON THE PRESENT, TO WHICH NO ONE PAYS ATTENTION

I do not wish to write at length in this post about the absolute prohibition of torture as a legal doctrine – it is obvious enough to anyone willing to see it. I want all the experts, civic associations, civic initiatives, and organisations that speak about human rights every day to finally reflect on what sounds mundane today and to which no one pays attention.

The lowering of the threshold of torture and the maximal, absolute heightening of tolerance toward torture have already become our present. The Odesa case is merely an example, a litmus test, a flash that for a moment lit up the abyss.

The most terrible thing about torture is not the act of violence itself. The most terrible thing is the moment when society begins to approve of that violence. When “never, against anyone” quietly turns into “permissible, if he deserved it.” Because after that, the question is no longer whether there will be torture. The only question is who will be the next to be deemed to have “deserved” it.

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.

REFERENCES

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Informator Ivano-Frankivsk. (2026, May 18). Head of one of the district TRCs in Frankivsk region and three subordinates to stand trial [in Ukrainian]. https://if.informator.ua/2026/05/18/sudytymut-kerivnyka-odnogo-iz-rajonnyh-tczk-frankivshhyny-ta-troh-jogo-pidleglyh

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NV (New Voice of Ukraine). (2026, February 19). Supreme Court draws a line under the Kaharlik police case [in Ukrainian]. https://nv.ua/ukr/ukraine/events/verhovniy-sud-postaviv-krapku-v-spravi-ekspoliciyantiv-yaki-zgvaltuvali-zhinku-v-kagarliku-50585359.html

NV (New Voice of Ukraine). (2024, November 4). The torture and rape case at Kaharlik Police Station — court dismissed appeal by former officers [in Ukrainian]. https://incident.obozrevatel.com/ukr/crime/sud-vidhiliv-apelyatsiyu-kolishnih-politsejskih

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Podrobnosti. (2026, May 18). TRC employees to stand trial in Prykarpattia for beating and torture [in Ukrainian]. https://podrobnosti.ua/2515825-na-prikarpatt-suditimut-pratsvnikv-ttsk-cherez-pobittja-ta-katuvannja.html

PRAVDA.IF.UA. (2026, May 29). The torture case at Verkhovyna TRC: how the hearing proceeded [in Ukrainian]. https://pravda.if.ua/sprava-pro-katuvannya-u-verhovynsiokomu-tczk-yak-prohodyv-sud/

PRAVO.UA. (2026, February 23). Bohatyr, V. The Ukrainian penitentiary system: between statistics and the standards of the European Convention [in Ukrainian]. https://pravo.ua/ukrainska-penitentsiarna-systema-mizh-statystykoiu-i-standartamy-ievropeiskoi-konventsii-bloh-volodymyra-bohatyria

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RBK-Ukraine. (2026). Lubinets stated that complaints about mobilisation violations increased 333-fold [in Ukrainian]. https://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/skargi-porushennya-mobilizatsiyi-zrosli-333-1778661505.html

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2021, September 30). SBI suspects Kharkiv police official who perversely tortured a man at a police station [in Ukrainian]. https://dbr.gov.ua/news/dbr-pidozryue-posadovcya-harkivskoi-policii-yakij-iz-zbochennyam-katuvav-cholovika-u-viddilenni

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2024, January 8). SBI referred to court the case of torture of men at the Ternopil TRC [in Ukrainian]. https://dbr.gov.ua/news/

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2026, April 22). SBI announced suspicion in the case of torture and shooting in Kharkiv involving TRC servicemen [in Ukrainian]. https://dbr.gov.ua/news/katuvannya-ta-strilyanina-u-harkovi-za-uchasti-vijskovosluzhbovciv-tck

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2026, February 3). SBI charged a district TRC officer in Kyiv region for beating and humiliating conscripts [in Ukrainian]. https://dbr.gov.ua/news/dbr-povidomilo-pro-pidozru-oficeru-rajonnogo-tck-kiivshhini-za-pobittya-ta-prinizhennya-vijskovozobovyazanih

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2026, January 26). SBI exposed Vinnytsia police officers: torture and clinical death [in Ukrainian]. https://www.myvin.com.ua/news/45433

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2026, January 7). Mobilisation in Ukraine: TRC servicemen tortured a man for refusing a fluoroscopy [in Ukrainian]. https://focus.ua/uk/voennye-novosti/739562

State Bureau of Investigations (SBI). (2026, January 8). SBI charged TRC officer in Mykolaiv with beating of conscripts [in Ukrainian]. https://glavcom.ua/country/incidents/dbr-oholosilo-pidozru-ofitseru-ttsk-u-mikolajevi-za-pobittja-vijskovozobovjazanikh-1097025.html

Suspilne Dnipro (Public Broadcasting). (2026, March 18). TRC forced conscription in Dnipro: what the police bodycam video revealed [in Ukrainian]. https://suspilne.media/dnipro/1257444

Suspilne Ivano-Frankivsk (Public Broadcasting). (2026, April 2). Lt.-Colonel Chornei of Verkhovyna TRC, suspected of torture, kept in custody [in Ukrainian]. https://suspilne.media/ivano-frankivsk/1255284

Suspilne Ivano-Frankivsk (Public Broadcasting). (2026, January 7). Torture at TRC in Frankivsk region: SBI detained another suspect [in Ukrainian]. https://suspilne.media/ivano-frankivsk/1207794

TSN. (2026, January 26). In Vinnytsia three law enforcement officers beat a theft suspect during interrogation, causing clinical death [in Ukrainian]. https://tsn.ua/ukrayina/u-vinnytsi-pravookhorontsi-pid-chas-dopytu-dovely-pidozriuvanoho-do-klinichnoyi-smerti-3008084.html

UNIAN. (2026). The Ombudsman’s Office received almost 12,000 complaints about TRC actions during mobilisation in Ukraine [in Ukrainian]. https://www.unian.ua/society/mobilizaciya-v-ukrajini-stalo-vidomo-skilki-skarg-podali-ukrajinci-na-diji-tck-13378455.html

Yagunov, D. (2026, January 25). The paradox of war: the effectiveness of criminal prosecution for torture in Ukraine (2013–2025) [in Ukrainian]. https://www.yagunov.in.ua/paradox-prosecution-torture/

Zaxid.net. (2026, May). Two servicemen from Ternopil received a suspended sentence and a fine for brutally beating conscripts [in Ukrainian]. https://zaxid.net/za_zhorstoke_pobittya_mobilizovanih_dvoye_viyskovih_z_ternopolya_otrimali_ispitoviy_termin_i_shtraf_n1637832

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:

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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

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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

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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.

According to investigators, the scheme operated systematically. Owners of so-called “porn offices” – premises used for the illegal production and distribution of erotic and pornographic content through internet platforms – paid police commanders 20,000 US dollars per month. The intermediary retained an additional 5,000 dollars. In exchange, the officials undertook not to take any enforcement action, not to document violations, and to provide advance warning of inspections.

At least several documented episodes of money transfers were established: 45,000 dollars in February 2026, 25,000 dollars in April, and a further 25,000 dollars in May – at the moment of detention. Searches yielded a fleet of luxury vehicles, five Swiss watches, weapons, and cash in various currencies totalling over UAH 22.6 million. This is not a personal success story of the suspects. It is materialised impunity.

LEGAL QUALIFICATION

The actions of the police commanders were charged under Part 4 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — receipt of unlawful benefit in an especially large amount by an official holding a responsible position, committed by a group of persons pursuant to a prior conspiracy. The sanction provides for imprisonment from eight to twelve years with confiscation of property.

The qualifying element of “prior conspiracy by a group of persons” is of fundamental importance. This is not a technical detail – it is evidence of the organised, rather than spontaneous, character of the corruption. The multiple documented episodes of money transfers point to an established criminal practice, not a one-off incident.

Separate attention should be paid to the atypical architecture of the criminal group: only commanders and a driver – i.e. the highest and lowest tiers – without an intermediate level. This either reflects a carefully constructed scheme of insulation, or signals that the middle tier has not yet been identified. This structural dissonance merits separate investigative attention.

OFFICIAL STATISTICS AS A MIRROR OF LATENCY: THE CRIME IT IS PROFITABLE NOT TO RECORD

An analysis of official police statistics concerning two core articles – keeping brothels and procuring (Article 302 of the Criminal Code) and pimping or inducing a person into prostitution (Article 303 of the Criminal Code) – reveals a stark paradox. Official data shows a steady decline in registered crimes against the backdrop of widely documented growth in the underlying practices. This is not evidence of a successful law enforcement system – it is an indicator of the system’s institutional interest in keeping this market segment invisible.

This is precisely why these categories of crime are traditionally classified as “ancillary” offences relative to human trafficking: their true scale is structurally absent from official statistics, because registration runs contrary to the interests of those tasked with registering.

The peak figures were recorded in 2014 – 509 registered crimes and 379 notices of suspicion. A sustained downward trend followed, with several characteristic deviations. In 2022, following the start of the full-scale invasion, only 61 crimes of this category were recorded – a reduction of 88% compared to the peak. In 2025 the figure stood at 54.

If interpreted literally, these data would suggest that the sexual services industry in Ukraine has virtually disappeared. Reality, as documented by investigative journalism, tells the opposite story: frontline cities have become regional hubs for sexual services, with clearly structured pricing – from 30–40 euros for a “massage” to 200 euros for trips to the combat zone. Demand has grown, the market has transformed, yet none of this appears in official statistics. Because it is profitable for other people in uniform.

The dynamics under Article 303 differ somewhat but follow the same logic. After notable growth in 2017–2018 (412 crimes — the maximum for the entire period studied), figures fall again: 195 crimes in 2022, 244 in 2024, 171 in 2025. The temporary increase in 2023 (348 crimes) can be explained by a partial restoration of law enforcement functions and the dislocation of criminal networks to safer territories, but by no means by any genuine increase in this type of crime.

LATENCY AS A STRUCTURAL PHENOMENON: CRIMES TURNED INTO BUSINESS

Crimes in the sphere of sexual services are classic examples of structural latency – a condition in which crime is systematically not recorded not because it is absent, but because its registration is contrary to the interests of law enforcement. Classical criminology distinguishes natural latency (the victim does not report) from artificial latency (law enforcement conceals the crime). In the case of the “porn-rent” corruption exposed on 20 May 2026, we are dealing with the second type – institutionalised and monetised.

The mechanism is simple and robust.

First, the victims and participants in such crimes have their own interest in avoiding police attention – they are either themselves administrative offenders, or they depend on “protection”.

Second, police commanders, receiving regular payments for “non-interference”, do not merely look the other way passively – they actively suppress any attempts by subordinates to document these violations. Official statistics reflect not the actual state of crime, but the result of this active filtering.

Consider the “suspicion rate” indicator – the share of registered crimes for which a notice of suspicion has been issued. Under Article 302, it fluctuates between 64.3% (2016) and 94.4% (2025). This means that those cases which do make it into the statistics are investigated with reasonable effectiveness. The paradox lies elsewhere: only a small fraction of actual crimes are registered – predominantly those arising from competitive conflicts between market actors.

The statistical collapse of 2022 – a drop to 61 registered crimes under Article 302 – is telling. It coincided not with the disappearance of the market, but with Russia’s full-scale invasion. Law enforcement resources were redirected, traditional “protection rackets” were partially disrupted. But the market was not. The Kramatorsk hub, described in detail by investigative journalists, emerged precisely as an adaptation to new geographical and social conditions.

QUANTITATIVE DIMENSION OF THE HIDDEN SCALE

The true extent of latency can be estimated by cross-referencing several indicators. According to research estimates, the latency coefficient for prostitution-related crimes ranges from 1:10 to 1:50 in various countries – meaning that for every registered crime, between 10 and 50 go unregistered. Even applying the conservative multiplier of 1:10 yields a picture sharply at odds with official data: if 54 crimes under Article 302 were registered in 2025, the actual number of such instances may have reached 540 to 2,700 per year.

These estimates are consistent with the demographic logic: Ukraine in 2025 has over 25 million residents in government-controlled territories, a significant proportion of whom are internally displaced persons – predominantly women in extremely precarious economic circumstances. The combination of large-scale demographic vulnerability and weakened institutional control is a classic environment for the expansion of an unregulated sexual services market. Official statistics do not capture this process – they capture the size of the corruption shield that conceals it.

A further indicator is the structure of the online market. According to market participants’ estimates, approximately 90% of online sexual services advertisements are fraudulent (scams), which itself evidences the broad presence of organised criminal groups in the online segment. Organised crime, oriented towards large-scale and systematic profit, requires systematic “cover”. This is precisely the corruption rent we observe in the case of 20 May 2026.

THE CORE THESIS: PROHIBITION AS A GENERATOR OF CORRUPTION RENT

The systemic bribery exposed on 20 May 2026 is not a consequence of the personal immorality of particular police officers. It is a direct and foreseeable consequence of the state’s prohibition on the legitimate operation of adult content online platforms.

Any prohibition of profitable but technically feasible activity in conditions of mass demand creates a rent space: the market moves underground but does not disappear. Platforms such as OnlyFans are publicly accessible without registration, operate around the clock, and any person can use them without any real restrictions from the state. The prohibition, in other words, is de facto non-operational and incapable of operation.

Instead, it creates a legal lever for coercion: since the activity is “illegal”, law enforcement officials acquire the monopoly power to decide – to prosecute or to “overlook”. This discretion converts into money. This is precisely how corruption rent arises – a regular payment for non-prosecution of that which the state formally prohibits but is factually incapable of blocking.

Here an entirely absurd paradox of public administration emerges. On the one hand, the state attempts to tax women engaged in such activity. On the other hand, it classifies this very same activity as a crime and prosecutes the same women criminally. The result is the creation of ideal conditions for unlimited police racketeering. Would such systemic bribery have occurred if the operation of such platforms had been legalised? Obviously not. The state itself created the conditions for the commission of these crimes.

The criminalisation of online erotic platforms, contrary to its declared objective of eradicating them, effectively pushes them deeper into the shadows – to a place where there is no legal oversight whatsoever, where women are left entirely unprotected, and where the preconditions for direct sexual exploitation arise. Law enforcement officials occupied with collecting corruption rent objectively have neither the time nor the motivation to combat genuinely dangerous forms of crime — trafficking, forced prostitution, child pornography.

THE SYSTEMIC DIMENSION

The intermediary in the scheme was the personal driver of the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. This is not a peripheral detail – it is a structural node of the entire construction. A driver is a person with constant physical access to a senior official, with unrecorded informal contacts, and with the capacity to conduct a parallel business life in the shadow of an official status. The question that inevitably arises: how far does the chain extend? No public suspicion has been directed at the Deputy Minister himself, but the mere fact that his immediate entourage proved to be the hub of a multi-oblast corruption network raises obvious institutional questions that cannot be ignored.

The scheme covered three regions simultaneously. This is not a local phenomenon and not a coincidence. It is either evidence of centralised coordination through a single intermediary, or – even more worrying – a sign of a widespread market practice in which regional police commanders independently and separately enter the market for protecting illegal businesses.

The case unfolds in the context of a full-scale war, and this gives it a qualitatively different dimension. Regional police department heads are not merely administrators. They are officials with access to operational information, accounting systems, security chains, and contacts with the SBU and military administration. A person who takes bribes and is dependent on a criminal business is a vulnerability in the country’s security system. In wartime, this is not merely corruption – it is a threat to national security.

The statistical data presented above confirm the systemic, rather than episodic, character of this phenomenon. If “protection rackets” were an isolated deviation, we would observe chaotic fluctuations in the statistics. Instead, we see a smooth downward registration trajectory with a clear correlation to general system stresses (the 2020 pandemic, the full-scale invasion of 2022) — and rapid recovery thereafter. This is structure, not accident.

A REGULATORY ALTERNATIVE

It is necessary to move away from artificial moralising and to frame the question in its real dimension: what specific moral harm has the existence of the relevant web platforms inflicted on Ukrainian society – and what moral harm has their protection by police inflicted? The answer is obvious.

The legalisation and regulation of online sex platforms is not a moral choice. It is an anti-corruption strategy. Its logic is simple: lawful activity does not require protection from the police — it is protected by law. The rent space disappears, and with it the corruption incentive.

Regulation, rather than prohibition, makes it possible to protect the rights of industry participants, introduce age and consent verification, tax revenues, and refocus law enforcement resources on real crimes — trafficking, coercion, child pornography. To speak of prohibition and criminal prosecution of something that exists completely openly, that requires no registration and operates 24/7, is entirely absurd. The state has discredited itself through the exposure of this scheme.

Statistical analysis confirms this conclusion methodologically. If over 13 years official statistics show an unvarying decline in crimes in a sphere that is clearly not declining in reality – this is not a problem with the offenders. It is a problem with the legal model, which generates structural latency and corruption rent instead of genuine protection.

One can predictably expect that, once the initial resonance fades, yesterday’s moralists in uniform will begin to speak of the need for legalisation – precisely because their own system for protecting illegal businesses has proven vulnerable. Society should take note of those voices and verify whether real reformist will stands behind them.

CONCLUSIONS

This case is more than a criminal scandal. It is a mirror of a systemic crisis generated by the convergence of three factors: an artificial prohibition that creates a corruption market; the structural latency of crimes that serves this prohibition; and the absence of real internal oversight within the law enforcement system.

Statistical data for 2013–2025 testify not to the success of efforts to combat crime in the sphere of sexual services, but to a persistent and systemic practice of concealing it from registration. The 88% decline in registered crimes under Article 302 of the Criminal Code and the 58% decline under Article 303 occurred in conditions where actual market volumes, by all independent estimates, were not shrinking — and in certain sub-periods were growing. This is materialised latency.

The true test of intentions will not be the arrests, but the verdicts. Even more telling will be whether this case prompts a systemic review of oversight mechanisms for regional police commanders, or whether it remains another signal after which the system reverts to its customary state.

Without structural changes — decriminalisation of online platforms, audit of the internal oversight system, refocusing of law enforcement resources on serious crimes, and a methodological revision of approaches to measuring latent crime — the next such scheme will be only a matter of time. And society will again pay for it — in money, security, and trust in the state at its most critical hour.

There is, however, a detail that gives pause – both in scale and in symbolism. This tragedy, by the calendar, preceded the beginning of the American Revolution by a single day. Yes, it was on April 19, 1775 – exactly 251 years ago – that the first shots rang out at Lexington and Concord. Armed citizens who refused to surrender their weapons to British soldiers opened a new chapter in the world history of democracy.

Between the two dates – April 18 and April 19 – lies a chasm of two and a half centuries and an abyss of meaning. But there is also a common thread: the question of who controls weapons in a society, and what price ordinary citizens pay for that. This thread is just as relevant today as it was 251 years ago.

THE STATISTICS IT IS CONVENIENT TO IGNORE

The debate over opening the firearms market during a full-scale war is, to put it mildly, absurd — not because it is the ‘wrong’ topic, but because the answer has already been written by reality, encoded in official police statistics that people prefer not to read. Let us look at the numbers.

The data reveal two distinct cycles of violence separated by a pre-war low. The first peak falls in 2014 (2,523 proceedings) – the year of Crimea’s annexation and the start of the armed conflict in the East: a sharp saturation of weapons, disorganization of law enforcement, and collapse of unified command. The following years show a gradual normalization – through to the 2021 minimum (300 proceedings). These figures should be treated as the baseline for comparison.

The full-scale invasion of 2022 produced a new spike: +543% relative to 2021 in the very first year (1,929 proceedings). A critical detail: the proportion of suspicion notices to total proceedings in 2022–2023 collapsed to 25–27% (compared to 77–86% in peacetime). This means the majority of cases were opened without identified suspects – a direct consequence of uncontrolled weapons proliferation and overburdened investigators. The positive trend of 2024–2025 (declining to 821–832 proceedings) reflects system adaptation, but the level remains twice the pre-war baseline.

This table records an even more alarming dynamic.

While the overall number of firearm-related crimes in 2022–2023 primarily reflected the chaos of the first months of the invasion, the homicide statistics point to a qualitatively different process. The year 2023 is the absolute peak across all 13 years of observation: 909 intentional firearm homicides – 25 times the 2021 minimum (36).

The most telling indicator is clearance. In 2023, it fell to 19%: only 173 of 909 cases had an identified suspect. In practical terms, 736 intentional homicides went unsolved within a single calendar year. For comparison: in 2018–2021, clearance rates stood at 90–98%. The recovery seen in 2024–2025 (52–64%) is a positive trend, yet it remains at least twice below peacetime levels. This means a significant share of those who committed firearm homicides during the active phase of the conflict remains unpunished – and continues to live in society.

AND THEN THE VIDEO APPEARS

And then a video appears that cannot be ignored.

During the terrorist attack in Kyiv, individuals in patrol police uniforms, upon hearing gunshots, simply fled – leaving civilians without protection. The recording shows a child forced to save herself on her own. The footage was published by TSN and Dzerkalo Tyzhnia. The officers have been suspended from duty. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko has ordered a disciplinary investigation.

Declarations are good. But the question is not what the minister said this morning. The question is what happens after the investigation concludes – assuming guilt is established and the authenticity of the recordings is confirmed. If police leadership fails to demonstrate a genuine response – not a declarative one, but one with concrete disciplinary consequences – the problem will intensify. Not because ‘the police are bad,’ but because institutional silence following such a video legitimizes conduct incompatible with the status of a law enforcement officer.

Among a segment of Ukrainian police officers, a dangerous attitude has taken hold during the full-scale war. Wartime, where violence is normalized, only reinforces the self-preservation reflex – at the expense of the protection reflex. Fleeing a shooter is not the cowardice of individuals. It is a symptom of systemic institutional degradation that cannot be fixed by a single disciplinary inquiry.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: WHAT THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS ACTUALLY GAVE

Let us return to the symbolism of the date.

April 19, 1775 – the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The first shots of the American Revolution. The shot heard round the world. And a few years later, the first modern constitutional democracy was born.

The right to bear arms did not merely allow Americans to win the War of Independence. It structured American democracy for two and a half centuries and embedded at its core the principle that an armed citizen is a subject, not an object, of power. This principle was enshrined in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution (1791): “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

American statistics demonstrate the obvious: high firearms saturation correlates with higher rates of firearm-related crime. 79% of intentional homicides in the United States involve a firearm. In EU countries, that figure ranges from 20% to 40%. The American model is not a template to emulate in a criminological sense. But it is a template in a constitutional-democratic sense: the right to self-defense as the foundation of the relationship between citizen and state.

It is important to distinguish two levels of debate. The first is criminological: more guns = more of certain categories of crime. The statistics confirm this, and to deny it is to ignore reality. The second is constitutional-democratic: the right of an armed citizen as a deterrent against state arbitrariness and as the basis of popular sovereignty. These two levels do not contradict each other – they describe different dimensions of the same reality.

UKRAINE TODAY: A SOCIETY WITH WEAPONS IN HAND

Ukraine today is a society in which millions of citizens, weapons in hand, are defending the state from destruction. By estimates, as of 2025, between 6 and 10 million units of various types of weapons are in civilian circulation – including among demobilized soldiers and veterans. Some are legally registered. Some are not. This is a fact that must be lived with.

The gravest threat lies ahead. Hundreds of thousands of demobilized soldiers are returning from the front. Some with untreated PTSD. Some with weapons, legally or not. The experience of other conflicts – Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Balkans – shows that crime rates among veterans do not rise immediately, but rather 2–3 years after demobilization. That wave has not yet arrived. And if the state does not prepare, the police statistics of 2027–2028 will become the subject of parliamentary inquiries, not academic articles.

The question is not whether to ‘legalize or not.’ The question is what institutional culture we are building around this reality – and whether the state is capable of the accountability that follows from it.

INSTEAD OF A CONCLUSION: THE STATE THAT DOES NOT PROTECT — AND THE CITIZEN WHO PROTECTS HIMSELF

The American Revolution began because the state failed to protect its citizens – and so they took up arms themselves. The Kyiv tragedy of April 18, 2026 – and especially the video of officers fleeing a shooter while leaving a child at the center of the gunfire – is a painful reminder that this question remains very much alive today.

A police officer who flees a shooter and abandons a child to their fate is not merely a disciplinary matter. It is a symptom. A state that wishes to grant its citizens the right to bear arms – or that has already done so de facto, having distributed millions of weapons in the first days of the invasion – must first demonstrate that it itself knows how to handle weapons responsibly and protect those who protect it.

The statistics are incontrovertible: the full-scale war produced a sharp spike in firearm-related crime – +543% in the first year alone. But those same statistics show that in 2024–2025, the numbers began to fall. This means that society and the state are adapting. The question is: in which direction. Toward the rule of law and institutional accountability – or toward the normalization of impunity, in which police officers flee and killers remain unidentified.

The weapon used by the gunman was officially registered, and he himself held the relevant permits. According to journalists’ reports, the man turned out to be a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces – a native of Moscow with Ukrainian citizenship – who, according to some sources, had made donations in support of the so-called ‘special military operation’. According to preliminary information, he had already attacked people in the same shop three years earlier. Neighbours say he moved into the building at the start of the full-scale invasion.

These facts form a chilling picture, but our task is not to inflame emotions – it is to try to answer, calmly and honestly, the questions that this tragedy inevitably poses to society, the law enforcement system and the rule of law.

WEAPONS, LICENCES AND THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY

The first and most obvious conclusion that springs to mind is that this crime was committed using a legally registered weapon. This is not a mere detail but a fundamentally important circumstance that undermines one of the central arguments of those lobbying for the free circulation of firearms: ‘Legal Weapons = Safety’.

The debate over the liberalisation of the firearms market in Ukraine has raged for years, but it intensified particularly in the context of the full-scale war, when a section of society and a number of lawmakers began insisting on enshrining the right to bear arms in the constitution, citing the need for self-defence and patriotic duty. The tragedy in Korsun polarised society at the time: many people sympathised with the man who had used a weapon against law enforcement officers – which in itself is symptomatic and alarming.

The current case is fundamentally different. Here there is no ‘people’s avenger’ or ‘Korsun Robin Hood’, nor is there any hint of social conflict with the system. There is a retired lieutenant-colonel who shoots peaceful supermarket shoppers with a legally registered pistol. It is precisely this circumstance that should settle the debate: not ‘who’ commits the crime or what their ideology is, but the fact that Ukraine’s system for issuing firearms licences is structurally incapable of filtering out those who harbour hidden destructive intentions. Screening during the registration of firearms has proved futile. Previous attacks on people in the same shop did not lead to the licence being revoked. The system failed.

Here, however, we must refrain from oversimplification. The people’s right to resist tyranny remains a fundamental principle of constitutional theory and international legal tradition. The question is not whether a citizen has the right to defend themselves, but whether the state is capable of responsibly managing the circulation of weapons in conditions of hybrid warfare, social trauma and the psychological instability of the population. The answer provided by this tragedy is – not yet.

NEGOTIATIONS, DE-ESCALATION AND COMMUNICATION FAILURE

For around 40 minutes, negotiators attempted to establish contact with the attacker, but he did not respond. “He did not make contact. I did not hear him,” noted the head of the negotiation unit at the Kyiv National Police.

This is a key detail that requires separate analysis. Forty minutes is both a long time and a short time. For negotiators, this is a relatively brief period in tactical terms. But the very fact of a complete lack of any response from the attacker indicates not only his pathological determination, but also a fundamental problem: were these forty minutes used with genuinely professional techniques for engaging a person in crisis? Does our police force even have the necessary level of training for negotiators capable of working with people who have crossed a psychological threshold?

Today, a dangerous mindset prevails among some Ukrainian police officers: ‘Shoot First – Sort It Out Later’. This mindset has gained further momentum in a wartime environment, where violence is normalised and the right to use force is interpreted far more broadly than provided for by law and human rights standards. The Kyiv tragedy, like many before it, risks becoming not a catalyst for reform but a confirmation of this flawed logic. Meanwhile, the ECtHR consistently emphasises that when assessing the lawfulness of the use of lethal force, account must be taken not only of the actions of the perpetrators but also of all the surrounding circumstances – in particular, planning and control (Mikhalkova and Others v. Ukraine, para. 36; McCann and Others v. the UK [GC], para. 150). The legislative and administrative framework must clearly define the limited circumstances in which law enforcement officers may use firearms, and police officers must not be left in a state of uncertainty regarding these limits (Soare and Others v. Romania, para. 129).

The true measure of police effectiveness is the ability to resolve critical situations without resorting to lethal force. It is in this direction that modern policing is developing in democratic countries, where officers acquire skills honed over years in de-escalation, psychological influence and – only in extreme cases – the use of weapons. The ECtHR in Soare and Others v. Romania explicitly stated that the absence of clear rules and proper training explains the inadequate and autonomous actions of police officers in critical situations (para. 135). And in Celniku v. Greece, the Court held that Article 2 of the ECHR covers not only the direct actions of police officers but also staff training: if the level of training does not correspond to the complexity of the tasks at hand, the state bears responsibility.

NEUTRALISATION OF THE ATTACKER: ARTICLE 2 OF THE ECHR AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated that KORD special forces carried out a raid and neutralised the attacker. During the assault, the perpetrator resisted law enforcement officers and opened fire on them.

In the acute phase of a crisis, when a person is actively shooting at police officers, the use of lethal force is formally justified even under the strict standards of Article 2 of the Convention.

The ECtHR, in cases such as McCann and Others v. United Kingdom, Nachova v. Bulgaria and Finogenov v. Russia, has consistently developed the criterion of ‘absolute necessity’: the state is obliged to prove that the person’s death was the result of force that did not exceed what was absolutely necessary in the specific circumstances. At the same time, as explained in McCann and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 200), the use of force is justified only where the agents genuinely believed that opening fire was necessary and had subjectively sufficient grounds for doing so — rather than merely following orders.

The standard of ‘absolute necessity’ is stricter than the criterion of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Articles 8 and 11 of the ECHR: force must be strictly proportionate (Jaloud v. the Netherlands [GC], para. 199; Kelly and Others v. the UK, para. 93). In a situation involving the rescue of a hostage from an armed criminal offering active resistance, these conditions may be met — but this still requires verification.

But this is precisely where the issue begins that most commentators prefer to sidestep. The state is obliged to conduct an effective independent investigation into whether there really was no other tactical option. Were all possibilities for a non-violent resolution of the situation exhausted? Was the timing of the assault correctly chosen? Is every shot fired by KORD officers documented and justified? The ECtHR in Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163) and Armani Da Silva v. the UK [GC] (para. 233) clearly stated: the investigation must cover not only the immediate actions of those carrying out the operation but also the planning and control of the operation as a whole; it must be capable of establishing whether the use of force was justified. Any shortcoming that undermines this capability constitutes a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the ECHR. A telling example is the case of Finogenov and Others v. Russia (Operation ‘Nord-Ost’), where the Court found a violation precisely because of the incompleteness and bias of the investigation.

In the context of Ukraine during a full-scale invasion, a public demand for an investigation into the circumstances of the death of a man who had just killed six civilians sounds critically unpopular. But this is precisely the essence of the rule of law: Article 2 of the ECHR protects the right to life not only of the criminal’s victims, but also of the criminal himself. Without this principle, the entire human rights framework becomes a situational compromise of the majority, rather than a system of universal guarantees. Article 2 of the ECHR imposes a positive obligation on the state not only to refrain from the intentional deprivation of life, but also to take preventive measures to protect persons within its jurisdiction (Yuriy Illarionovich Shchokin v. Ukraine, para. 35). A general legal prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life becomes ineffective without an effective review procedure: this is precisely how the Court formulated it in Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy [GC] (para. 249) and Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163). Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus demonstrates that even a hostage rescue operation resulting in the death of a perpetrator may be deemed lawful – but only provided that planning was carried out with a view to minimising risk, negotiations were conducted rationally, and the operatives had clear instructions to use only proportionate force (para. 194).

Furthermore, there is a purely practical argument: a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces who had lived in Ukraine, made donations to the ‘SVO’ and ultimately carried out a mass shooting – this was a source of information of exceptional value to counter-intelligence. His motives, connections, possible handlers and funding channels could all have been established during interrogations. His elimination has permanently shut down that channel.

THE DANGER OF ‘SECURITY’ DISCOURSE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

This tragedy will inevitably give rise to legislative initiatives. Some will be aimed at tightening controls on the circulation of weapons — and this is justified and necessary. But others — and this is where alarm bells should ring — will use this incident to justify expanding the police apparatus, intensifying preventive surveillance and legalising ‘proactive’ operational measures.

This mechanism is well known in human rights practice: a terrorist attack or large-scale crime becomes a ‘window of opportunity’ for the state to expand its powers in areas where citizens would not normally permit such intrusion. Laws passed ‘in the heat of the moment’ are, as a rule, not repealed even after the shock has passed.

The right to private and family life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to the protection of personal data, the right not to be subject to preventive police surveillance without sufficient grounds – all these guarantees are under threat whenever society experiences a sudden surge of fear. The standard of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Article 8 of the ECHR is less stringent than the criterion of ‘absolutely necessary’ under Article 2, but even this does not permit the state to introduce widespread preventive surveillance without individual grounds and judicial oversight. The task of the human rights community, the legal profession and the academic community is to ensure that a single tragedy does not become a justification for systemic restrictions on rights that will affect millions of people who have no connection whatsoever to the crime.

POLICE TRAINING

A dangerous trend that has long been brewing within the Ukrainian police has now gained new momentum: a readiness to use weapons before establishing the facts. The tragedy of 18 April risks becoming not a warning but a justification for this logic – and it is currently extremely difficult to assess the true scale of such a shift.

That is precisely why this case must serve as a compelling argument in favour of a systematic review of police training – but not in the direction of improving marksmanship or physical skills. We are talking about something fundamentally different: training officers in the art of communication, the ability to defuse tension in real time and the professional application of de-escalation techniques.

The true measure of the effectiveness of a modern police force is the ability to resolve critical situations without violence. The shift from a punitive model to one of dialogue and professional restraint is not romanticism but a practical necessity. This is where the future of Ukraine’s law enforcement system lies.

CONCLUSIONS

This tragedy presents a multi-layered challenge. For society, it is a call for restraint amidst emotional pressure and the temptation of simplistic answers. For legislators, it is a challenge to draft regulations that genuinely enhance safety without becoming instruments of punitive bureaucracy. For the police, it is a mirror in which they must see not their own heroism but their systemic shortcomings in training, de-escalation and tactical flexibility. For human rights defenders, it is a reminder that the protection of human rights cannot be conditional: either it applies to everyone, or it does not exist as a principle.

Six families are mourning their loved ones. This is an undeniable reality, and it takes precedence. But the appropriate response to these deaths is not a new wave of police aggression or a flurry of emotional legislation – it is a systematic, dispassionate and honest analysis of where the system failed, and how to fix it without losing our humanity.